


Where the furies call

by Owlship



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: (i love that that's a canonical tag now), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bathing/Washing, Branding, Car Sex, Extremely Dubious Consent, F/M, Furiosa Receives Oral Sex, Furiosa Was Never Taken, Groping, More Sex, Talk of Rape/Non-con, The Green Place Survived, Threats, Vaginal Sex, Warning: Immortan Joe, Warning: Organic Mechanic, mild violence, the citadel is not a fun place to be, there's a plot but it's going to take a while to get there, warnings that will eventually be needed include:
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-27
Updated: 2018-06-06
Packaged: 2018-11-19 19:28:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 27,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11320098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Owlship/pseuds/Owlship
Summary: Furiosa may have grown up at the Green Place surrounded by Many Mothers instead of as a cog in the Citadel's human machinery, but at the end of the world things are still never easy.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this kinkmeme prompt](http://madmaxkink.dreamwidth.org/450.html?thread=58306#cmt58306), where Furiosa was never taken to the Citadel and the Green Place still exists.
> 
> Title is from [The Woman over the Range.](https://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/poets/fullerton-mary-e/the-woman-over-the-range-0101019)

"You're a fool if you take that deal," Furiosa says. The stranger looks at her through the corner of his eye before turning back to look at Schrader.

"Stop scaring off my customers," Schrader tells her with a dismissive flick of his hand. "Fine deal sir, fine barter."

The stranger looks uneasy now, shifting his weight from one foot to another, but then he nods with a grunt and accepts the jug of water and little bag of Casino chips. She huffs; where he even _got_ a Gastown token is beyond her, but he's been well and truly swindled. She doesn't really care for his sake, but every bad deal Schrader makes gives him inflated ideas of his stuff's worth.

"You get that starter yet?" she asks Schrader, expecting the answer to continue to be 'no' same as he's told her for the past six months. But he smiles in that particularly nasty way he gets when he's actually got the upper hand, and reaches into his sack to pull out a greasy bit of metal.

"As a matter of fact," he says, and then names an outrageous price. Furiosa haggles with him for nearly half an hour before he finally caves, and takes the token she's offering.

"We're leaving tomorrow," she tells him with a vicious smile of her own, taking the starter with her prosthesis while she passes over the chip. Half basket of produce is a fair enough price, and if he doesn't cash in before they leave it'll be useless. Unless he wants to wait six months for the color to come up again.

Furiosa turns and walks away victoriously. She sees the stranger in the crowd making another trade and stops to watch, wondering if he has anything valuable that she can swindle. To her surprise he produces another Gastown token, and if one was improbable two is nearly impossible. And he's just frittering them away!

He catches sight of her and then finishes his trade, which is at least better than the last.

"Token for token?" she asks. It's not like she's ever going to be at Gastown but they're good pretty much everywhere and he apparently doesn't know their worth.

He snorts. "You'd be a fool," he says.

"And why's that?" she asks, genuinely curious.

He glances around and then takes a stamped metal coin out of a jacket pocket. It looks exactly like any other she's seen, until she looks closer and sees that 'GASTOWN' is actually spelled 'GASTWON'.

"They're counterfeit," Furiosa says with pleased surprise. She'll have to tell the others not to accept them, but she doesn't mind the other traders being swindled. "You're still a fool to have taken the Casino tokens."

He tucks the coin away and cocks his head. "Fake?"

She shakes her head. "The Casino went under nearly a year ago," she says. "Where've you been?"

His expression closes down, his shoulders going stiff and defensive. No place good, then.

"Well, if you've got any real barter, we've veg," she says. Not nearly as much or as high quality as in past years, but he doesn't need to know that.

He makes a vague noise and she knows he won't be by. Well, it isn't as if there's a shortage of people who'll be willing to sell their limbs for fresh greens. Furiosa shrugs and says, "See you 'round, Fool," before walking off into the crowd.

 

To her surprise he does wander by their camp, just before sunset. She's resting next to their fire and listening to Valkyrie berate the man she's taken inside their tent when he ambles up the beaten-dirt pathway.

"Heard there's-" he breaks off when Val shouts a particularly loud insult.

Furiosa waves her hand. "Ignore that," she says, getting to her feet. "Here for greens?"

He nods, still eyeing the tent dubiously. "Fair trade," he says.

"What've you got?" she asks.

He shrugs the pack he's wearing off his shoulders and digs through it for a moment before coming up with a bundle of rags. He undoes the knot holding it closed and she sees that it's a fistful of bullets, rifle rounds by the looks of it.

She lets out a considering hum and picks up one of the bullets to inspect. No way to know if the powder's any good until they try firing but they feel heavy enough, and the cartridge is stamped with Bullet Farm's signature. Bullet Farm ammo and Gastown tokens... He's from over the mountains, that's for sure.

"Not counterfeit, I hope," Furiosa says, and the very corner of his lips tick upwards as he shakes his head. She drops the bullet back in with the rest and motions for him to follow. No point giving him a token when he's already here.

Behind the front tent she shares with Valkyrie and Joy there's the store tent, this one under active guard. Gilly flicks her eyes to the man behind her and she shakes her head minutely; no trouble.

"Half a basket," she says, handing off the battered plastic container they use for measuring. "Or a quarter-bag of grains." It's probably more than the ammo is worth, but they've the veg to use up.

He takes the basket with one hand and passes over the bundle of bullets, which she tucks away. He looks like a veteran scav so she isn't surprised to see him going for the few root vegetables they've brought this time, stuff that'll keep decently long and even sprout if you have the place to put it. He fills the basket exactly halfway, no attempts at cheating and no shorting himself looking to earn favor.

Furiosa checks it to be sure and then nods. "You don't keep the basket," she says, and gets herself another little amused look.

The stranger stuffs everything into a sack and she walks him back around front, just in time to see Val shoving her man out of the tent, huffing at him to "get out of here, useless scag."

"We trade here on the full moons," Furiosa tells him, and he sends an apprehensive look Valkyrie's way but nods. She honestly can't tell if he's going to be back or not, he's already surprised her once.

When both men are gone she takes up her seat again, throwing another scrap onto the tiny fire.

"That bad?" she asks.

"Worse," Valkyrie sighs, sitting down next to her. "Mothers but I hope it finally takes."

"Shouldn't you be lying with your ass in the air?" Furiosa teases, and gets a shove on her shoulder for it.

"Fuck off," she says. "You don't get to talk until you start trying."

"It'll happen," Furiosa says, reaching out to wrap Val in a loose hug. It could so easily never happen and they both know it; the last birth among any of them was five years ago now, and that babe hadn't lasted more than a week.

   
  


The trading post is active, for a given value of active, every day. But it's the full moons that bring in the real crowds, the people looking to spend all day bartering and all night partying, getting drunk off whatever piss-still moonshine they can get their hands on.

The Many Mothers have had a stand here since before you needed to put produce under armed guard, and she still has vague memories of those days. Of running loose and screaming laughter with the other kids, earning a sugar-sticky sweet if she behaved.

Now everything's as dusted over and run-down as the rest of the world, but it still brings them in the things that they can't make or scavenge themselves.

Furiosa's surprised when she sees the stranger again, this time apparently out of his fake gas tokens and exchanging real barter instead.

"They won't give you the good stuff," she tells him after watching him try- and fail- to get offered anything other than sediment-laden guzz.

He doesn't quite startle, but he turns to her with a suspicious look and grunts a question.

"You're a stranger, Fool," she says. "Give me your currency and I'll handle it."

He squints more suspiciously and she sends him a steady look, not entirely sure why she's bothering in the first place. Slowly he nods. "Twenty gallons," he says, and passes over the sack of miscellaneous parts he was using as payment.

She gives it a cursory look and figures she can stretch it to twenty-five or even thirty, if Lien's in a good mood. They're not nearly as much of a hard-ass as Schrader, knowing the locals will turn on them in a second if they think the risk is worth the reward.

Furiosa isn't as good at smooth-talking as Valkyrie but she knows everyone except the strangers, has been coming here since before she was born. Lien puts up a fight, recognizing the stuff as what the Fool had brought to them earlier, but she gets twenty-three gallons of decent-grade guzz out of them.

"Where's your ride?" she asks after sealing the deal. Lien's good to their word; she isn't worried about them cheating her.

"Out," he says with a grunt.

"Well the guzz is here," she points out.

He grunts again.

Lien knows who she's traded for, they won't have any problem filling up Fool's tank without her present. Still, she's curious about what sort of wheels he's got. "I'm not waiting around forever," she says.

He frowns a little, then seems to get what she's implying. Twenty gallons is too heavy to carry in a jug this time of day unless he hates himself, and she doesn't think he's that sort of stupidly macho. "You won't take it?"

Fair question, she supposes. Furiosa thinks about what she can give him as collateral and settles on the flashiest of her options. Besides, the arm was getting heavy anyway. She unbuckles it and holds the prosthesis out to him, smirking inwardly at his surprised expression.

He does accept it to hold, though, rather than think she's bluffing or take her at her word that she won't run off on him. He tucks it under his arm and nods. "Half an hour?"

She shrugs. She has nowhere pressing to be.

He gives her another look and then turns to start walking away through the crowd.

"That boy aware you're gonna spider him?" Lien asks.

"Could be you instead," she says, sending them a significant glance and leaning against the rickety wood of their guzz shack.

They smile back and waggle their eyebrows, but get distracted by another customer come up. Like the rest of the Vuvalini she's amused by the stories that get circulated of how they're man-eaters, one night of pleasure and then your throat's slit. The reputation has its advantages, she has to admit.

She hadn't been planning on taking Fool to bed, but now that the thought's in her head she can see the appeal in the idea. He looks healthy, and he could do with a shave but what she can see of his face isn't ugly, and she's already talked to him three times now without feeling that she's being looked at like a piece of meat.

She crosses her legs in front of her and waits for the sound of an engine pulling up.

It's nearer to forty when a black car rumbles into view, angular and mean. She knows bikes better than she knows cars, but it doesn't take an expert to see that this is a piece of work.

The engine cuts and Fool steps out, eyes darting around nervously. She uncrosses her legs and steps away from the wall of the shack, and he relaxes only fractionally.

"Nice ride," Furiosa says.

He hums an agreement, and passes her prosthesis back to her. It's one of the more subdued cars she's seen, the extra tailpipes about the only unnecessary embellishment on it, but when she looks at it she can feel that it's plenty fast. He's spent more time on what's under the hood than the bodywork and that's something she can appreciate.

Lien gets the pump going, guzz sloshing into the tank on the back of the car while Fool keeps an eye on the meter and she straps her arm back on. They won't cheat him, she knows, but she can't blame him for being suspicious.

"What's she running?"

He glances at her like he's wondering if she's in league with Lien to swindle him, but he says, "351 Cleveland."

Respectable, certainly, and the rig's in good enough shape that she thinks he knows how to handle it. When the gas clicks off Furiosa says, "We never said how you'd pay me back."

He freezes, halfway through tightening the tank's cap back on.

"I got you three extra gallons," she says, "I think burning off one of them is fair."

Fool blinks at her, then frowns. "It's my car."

"You'll be riding shotgun," she says. If she wanted to steal his stuff there are far easier ways to go about it.

He's still frowning, but he nods.

There isn't a passenger seat in his car, just a heap of junk over the floor panel that he begrudgingly clears off while she slides behind the wheel. He has a key in the ignition which is delightfully old-fashioned, and when she turns it the engine coughs and sputters but starts up without any more coaxing. It's been a while since she drove anything other than their truck and this car's a right-sided drive on top of things, but it isn't as if it's difficult to remember which pedal is which.

There are no mirrors, of course- though the windshield isn't more than chipped- and the tank and various containers take up most of the view out the rear, so she backs out away from the gas station carefully.

As soon as she's clear Furiosa shifts out of reverse and presses the accelerator, grinning at the way the engine roars. The supercharger doesn't seem to be running; there's a toggle on the shifter but she leaves it be, not wanting to burn through her allotted fuel too quickly.

She knows the area around here well, though she isn't used to driving a car as opposed to a bike, and while his ride turns a tad wide- or maybe that's just her, unused to handling a car after years on a nimble bike- she thinks it'll handle her favorite course.

There are several tracks cut out of the landscape around the trading post, some of which are fair and others which are meant to take advantage of strangers drifting through without the sense to scout the terrain first. Her favorite is one of the latter, the kind that _can_ be driven if you know what you're doing, full of little pitfalls and switch-backs- and one spectacular ramp.

"She jump?" she asks, turning away from the view ahead to glance down at Fool crouched in the passenger's spot. He doesn't look quite so grumpy now, though she has the feeling he isn't the type that'll ever be _happy_ having someone other than himself driving his car.

He glances at her with concern but nods cautiously, and she takes the path branching off to the left as she steps on the gas. It isn't a particularly large jump, all things considered, but she's never attempted it on a car. The ground's been built up into a mud-cemented ramp over the years, various groups wanting to get higher, further.

Furiosa steers the car dead-on and feels the ground drop away as they leap into the air.

It's always a gamble, always feels as if this time she'll have gotten the angle wrong or be moving too slowly and they'll crash, but this time the car sails through the air while her stomach does a weightless swoop until they slam back into the ground on the other side, random junk in the back of the car bouncing around noisily. She shouts in victory and glances over at Fool, finding him smiling a little bit himself.

Her heart is beating fast, adrenaline sparking down her nerves, and as she swerves into a switch-back hardly anyone uses because the sand is soft she adjusts the stance of her legs in the seat, arousal coiling through her.

After another few turns beyond the main track she fishtails to a stop next to a wall of rock and cuts the engine, the silence deafening without the roar of it filling the air. Before anything else has a chance to happen Furiosa twists in her seat and grabs the front of his shirt, leaning over the middle console and tugging him in for her to kiss.

There's a few seconds where their lips meet and then he jerks back and she lets him go, leaning away without apologizing.

"I didn't," he says, "I'm not buying _that_." He doesn't look disgusted, or particularly turned-off, just surprised and a little offended.

"Good," she says, "Because I'm not selling it." If he doesn't want her that's fine, she isn't in the business of forcing people. But nothing about him particularly puts her off, and it's been a while since she had a man, and taking a fast engine for a fast spin has always done things for her.

Fool licks his lips, eyes scanning over her. Nothing happens for a long moment and then he lifts a hand up and lightly touches her arm, and nods.

She gives an internal sigh of relief and leans back over, this time more careful about how her mouth lands against his. He kisses like he hasn't done so in a while, hesitant and then all at once hungry, desperate.

Furiosa moves from the driver's seat to the passenger side, fumbling in the compact space as she moves to straddle him. Fuck but he's a good kisser, his hands big and rough as he grabs hold of her. Sitting in his lap like this her head just about touches the ceiling, but she's worked with worse.

It's dumb to undress more than necessary but they're only half a klick away from help, and she has it on good authority that the car starts and runs fast. She shoves his jacket off his shoulders and when he moves to take it off entirely she unstraps her arm, and then the wrap of leather that keeps the bruising at bay.

Without his jacket she can see that he's really as solid as he'd seemed, the strength in his arms evident when she drags her hand up from elbow to shoulder, mapping the curves of muscle as he moves. What she wouldn't give to see him naked, though she knows that's never going to happen.

He puts his hands on her middle and runs them along her skin, pushing her shirt up while she takes his mouth for another kiss. She breaks off with a soft gasp when he cups her breasts, those rough hands careful on her skin. His hands slide away to tug her closer and then his face is against her chest, his mouth soft and hot surrounded by scratchy beard.

She grinds her hips down on his and feels that he's growing hard; he sucks on one of her nipples and she moans softly, and she hadn't been decided about how she was going to fuck him but now she doesn't want anything other than his cock inside of her.

Furiosa gets her hand down between them and slides it into his pants, until her fingers brush against the hot skin of his cock. With his belt still done up and her in his lap there isn't much space to work with, but he groans anyway when she gives him an open-palmed rub up and down.

"I want you to fuck me," she says because if she had been still on the fence then feeling the size of him would have tipped her over, and his beard scratches against her skin when he nods.

Actually getting there means getting out of his lap to tug off one of her boots and peel away her pants, belt going to rest on the driver's seat with her prosthesis. Fool wraps his hands around her ass when she settles back over him, his cock spearing into the air heavy and flushed red. She's probably wet enough to just sink down on him but one of his hands sneaks down to her cunt, fingers brushing through the folds of her labia.

She rewards this with a kiss, arms wrapping around his neck and hips tilting into the touch.

He knows his way around a woman she's pleased to note, fingers spreading slick as he finds her clit and then moving carefully against it. Furiosa moans against his lips a little when he moves just so, and it's heating her up but she can get fucked by his fingers later.

She reaches down and tugs his hand away, then rolls her hips down against his cock so that he's the one making noise. He takes his now-free hand and holds himself in place for her, so that when she lines herself up she sinks down onto him easily.

It's been a while and he's big, enough to be a stretch as she works herself down his length until she can grind up against the base of his cock, forcing her body to adjust as she goes. She lets out a quiet sigh before moving again, rolling her hips against his.

Fool groans deeply as she does so, his own hips twitching without much leverage, and when she kisses him again he makes an almost-pained noise and comes, wet and messy and way sooner than she would have wanted.

"Sorry," he gasps, "Sorry."

She hides her face into the curve of his shoulder because men hate it when you laugh at them and she's going to need a moment to compose herself. When the urge to laugh is manageable she pats her hand against the back of his neck and says, "It happens."

He lets out a frustrated huff and she pecks him on the lips because _before_ the premature finish things had been going pretty well, and if it's something she can train out of him she'd want to see him again, maybe.

"You can make it up to me," Furiosa says. And maybe if he gets hard again in the meantime he'll last long enough to be worth it.

He nods, still looking supremely embarrassed, and says, "If you get on the seat, I can, ah, use my mouth."

She hums in acceptance and kisses him again before swinging her leg over and sitting on the edge of the driver's seat, where she leans back to get the full effect of him kneeling down between her legs. Fool flicks his eyes up to her and then away, shuffling close and nuzzling his way between her thighs, big hands tanned against the pale skin there.

Like with the kissing he starts out almost cautious before settling in and moving more confidently, almost hungrily, licking and sucking until she can't hold in a moan. Fuck but he's good at this, too.

She rolls her hips up against his mouth, hand scrabbling for leverage on the dashboard; he slides one of his hands over to her cunt and starts finger-fucking her in concert with how he's licking patterns around her clit, fingers rubbing like he knows just where to touch. Furiosa feels her climax building, coiling hot and tight in her pelvis, and when it breaks over her she gives a wordless cry that's perhaps a touch too loud for being out in the open like this.

He keeps going and she does nothing to dissuade him, grinding against him as she works for a second. His fingers are rubbing just right, curling up towards the front of her walls, his lips and tongue hot and lush against her clit. It's him slipping a third finger inside of her that makes her come again, the unexpected fullness of it.

This time she twitches away when he shows no signs of stopping on his own, and he pulls back to sit on his haunches, sticking the fingers that had been inside her into his mouth to suck clean.

She leans forward and tugs him by the shirt to kiss again, his lips swollen and slick with her. "You're redeemed," she says.

She can feel the Fool's smile against her own lips, a quiet almost shy thing.

Given a few seconds to catch her breath she could go for another round of fucking him but he's still soft and she isn't sure she wants to stick around long enough for that to change. She's got a small canteen on her but she wasn't planning on being very far from their camp, has only a few tokens rather than any actual food packets. Furiosa sighs and stretches, and starts getting herself dressed again.

"She's a nice ride," she says, patting the dash of the car. "Have a name?"

He shakes his head and shrugs. "Just a, hm, a Pursuit Special."

"MFP?" she asks, eyebrows raised. She's never seen one of them in person but she's heard about them, of course.

"For the good it did," he says with another shrug, something dark lurking at the edges of his expression.

She nods and lets the topic rest, instead swinging around in the seat so she can get out of the car entirely. The sun's starting to go down but it'll be a while yet until it's dark. She gets her leather girdle back in place and straps her arm down over it, and when she looks she sees Fool shrugged back into his jacket and sort of awkwardly halfway out of the car and halfway sitting in the seat.

"Take you back?" he asks, and she smiles a little.

"Your car's better off out here," she says with a dismissive wave.

He glances around and then nods an agreement. He doesn't make any move to get out and walk back, so she figures he's done trading for the day. Furiosa sends him a wave goodbye and starts off towards the flickering lights of the trading post, wondering if he'll be back yet a third time.

 

Valkyrie squints at her suspiciously when she gets back to camp, and she sends her an impassive look back, collapsing down to sit next to Joy at their fire.

"Heard you got in a car with a stranger," Joy says.

"That's it!" Valkyrie says with a snap of her fingers before she has a chance to respond. "You went off and screwed someone, didn't you?"

Furiosa stretches her legs out in front of herself to feel the pleasant ache Fool's left between her thighs and figures her silence will be answer enough. "Is there anything to eat?" she says instead. She _could_ tell them about what she was up to and compare the Fool with others from their past, but she likes that he's just hers for now, and she knows they'll make fun of him for going off early and she doesn't want to tease him, even in absentia.

"Leftover lizard," Joy says, passing her a leather pouch filled with scraps of jerky.

She grabs a few pieces and starts gnawing on one while Valkyrie says, "And _you_ even liked it! Swear to Goddess if you get knocked up before me I'm disowning you."

Furiosa rolls her eyes to cover for how she hadn't even been thinking about that. It's highly unlikely from this one tumble but it is theoretically possible, and if the Fool does come back and wants to be with her again... She's never had any real desire to be one of the birth mothers, but she thinks it's a consequence she's willing to deal with if it means she gets his mouth and his cock in the meantime.

 


	2. Chapter 2

She refuses to admit that she's disappointed when Fool doesn't show the next month, as if they'd had some sort of understanding rather than just sharing a quick fuck. But then the month after that he turns up at their stand the first day of the full moon, token in hand, and Furiosa's glad to be the only one of them there when she recognizes him. She hasn't spoken of their encounter to anyone- why would she, when they're just strangers having a little bit of fun? she doesn't even know his _name_ \- but she isn't entirely sure Valkyrie or Joy wouldn't see the look on her face and start making assumptions anyway.

She holds her hand out for the token to look over without so much as a greeting, and smiles a little at what she finds. "You got swindled, Fool," she says, and he frowns. "Red was last month."

He looks at the red paint on the chip and then up at her face, and sighs.

They've been having another poor season, and she really shouldn't barter their produce away without something worthwhile in return, but... "Your car juiced up?"

He frowns in confusion, but nods.

"You beat me in a race, I'll let you fill a basket," Furiosa says.

He tilts his head, considering the idea. He could always decline and offer something more traditional to trade with, or just take his token back and wait for the color to come up again. But he hums a little and nods. "Fair and square," he says, intoned like a question.

"Street legal," she replies. "You saw the flats out north? I'll be there in an hour."

The Fool nods with another hum, and his eyes flick over her so quickly she's not entirely sure he's aware he's even looked before he's turning around to head back down the road towards the main town. She watches him go, the hitch in his stride from the braced leg she'd noticed, the random things swinging from his pack.

Then she walks over to the store tent. "I need to leave to track down one of the others," she tells Gale, who's cleaning a disused pistol. They've only had a few actual attacks, but precautions are there for a reason.

"Joy was talking about the fire show," Gale says, something that doesn't even start until sundown. Still, it's as close to permission as she'll get.

Furiosa nods and heads off to find one or the other, wondering if Gale plans to talk to anyone about the conversation she undoubtedly just overheard.

 

Fool's waiting for her when she gets her bike down to the flats, standing besides his car and looking around warily like he thinks she's leading him into a trap. She sees him relax when the fact that it's just her registers, though he's frowning a little when she gets close.

"A bike?" he asks.

Furiosa flashes him a pointed look in answer. "Twice around?" There's a track more-or-less beaten flat into the area, hundreds of races having taken place here before. She's somewhat surprised there isn't one already happening, if she's honest.

He still looks apprehensive about it, but nods.

There's no referee, no one to call the start and watch the finish line, but she isn't much worried. They rev up, front wheels aligned, and she meets his eyes through his window before shouting "Go!"

He leaps to obey and she doesn't waste time either, throttling up and digging her tires into the ground beneath her. She has the advantage on accelerating, her bike far lighter than any car even loaded down, but it's whether or not she can keep her lead that matters.

Her bike is rumbling beneath her and she can hear the Fool's car roaring behind her, the wind in her face and sun glinting off the bits of scrap littered around the edges of the track. Her scarf is keeping the dust out of her mouth but she can still practically taste the hot sand as she flies over the ground.

There's lightning in her blood and she whoops loudly as she corners hard around a turn, still keeping her lead by several meters. He's catching up though, and she can tell it's going to be close. Not every driver can say the same thing and it excites her all the more, has her leaning down closer to her tank, coaxing her bike just a little faster.

The distance between them shrinks until she can feel his bumper practically on top of her, and she wonders if he'll run her down or swerve away. She cuts the next corner close, more maneuverable than his car, and sails past their start-line with her front wheel maybe half a meter ahead of his bonnet. Furiosa raises her hand in victory and hears a raspy noise that might be the remains of a car horn, and grins as she slides to a quick, showy stop.

His car rumbles to a halt not too far away, and the silence when he cuts his engine is deafening.

"I won," she tells him as he steps out.

He grunts, but she can see that the race was as exciting for him as it was for her, and despite the area being so open _Mothers_ but she wants him. She steps in close to him and watches his face, the way his pupils are wide and his lips held soft.

"We never said what my prize would be," she says. When she licks her lips his eyes follow the movement, and when she puts her hand on his arm he doesn't flinch away but instead leans in, and she sways towards him.

He kisses exactly as well as she'd remembered, his mouth hot and hungry against hers. She tugs him against her, carefully wrapping her metal arm around his shoulders.

It takes only a little encouragement until Fool is pressing her against his car, the metal hot against the backs of her thighs even through the sturdy leather of her trousers, one of his hands gripping her ass. The front of his car has an aggressive angle to it but it's steady enough for her to rest her weight on, letting him slot in between her legs. It was perhaps ill-advised to have sex that last time but it's positively idiotic to do so now, out on the open racetrack with no backup and no cover.

Rather than being scared off she appreciates the danger of it, the thrill of skirting close to destruction.

She tugs her goggles off her head and her scarf from around her neck and he immediately starts kissing her revealed skin; he's shaved sometime recently, light stubble scratching at her throat while she tips her head back and sighs. Furiosa rests more weight on the car and lifts up one of her legs, hitching it around his hip to pull him in even closer. He's hard in his leathers and groans when she rubs up against him.

His engine's still ticking underneath her, the smell of burned guzz and kicked-up dirt heavy in the air, and it only serves to make her wetter, cunt throbbing at the thought of all of this.

Fool plants one hand on the hood and presses her down with his weight, until her head's resting just to the side of the blower and she has both her legs up holding him close while he kisses her like he wants to devour her. She very, very much wants to fuck him out here but she isn't going to take her leathers all the way off, isn't quite that stupid even with the promise of sex- and that limits her options.

His hips are grinding against hers and she can feel that he's hard, so hard, and it was a short performance last time but his cock was good enough while it lasted for her to want to give him another shot.

"Fuck me," she says into the hinge of his jaw. "Here, like this."

He makes a low rumbling noise and Furiosa wonders if his self-preservation instincts will win out, but then he's saying "yeah" and his hands reach for the waistband of her pants. She helps him pull them up to her thighs, the metal of the car scorching on her newly-bared skin, and then he's undoing the fly on his pants.

She lets him manhandle her a little while they make the position work, some thrill going through her at the casual show of his strength, until her ass is on the edge of the hood and her legs are pressed up towards her chest, tethered by her leathers. Fool sinks inside of her in a single jerk and she moans at the feeling, the stretch of his hot cock.

She wants to see if she can come while he's inside her, if he can hold out long enough, so as he starts fucking her with a deep groan of his own she reaches down into the confined space between them to touch herself. He mutters something that she thinks has to do with how good her cunt feels to him and she squeezes her muscles down unthinkingly, bucks her hips as well as she can with him heavy over her. His thrusts are a little unsteady, short and hard, but he hasn't spurted off yet and that's promising.

His pace is enough to have her biting back noises as he fucks into her, as perfectly rough as she would have hoped. Furiosa does her best to meet his movements, rubs her clit and bites her lip and moans louder than she should when his free hand kneads against her breast, fingers finding a nipple through the fabric of her shirt.

He ducks his head and mouths at her chest where the tops of her breasts are exposed by the lower cut of her market shirt, lips skating over where her collarbone arcs under her skin. She can tell that he's going to leave a friction burn from his whiskers but she doesn't mind it; she minds a bit more the way he sucks what is sure to become a deep red mark on her throat, but it comes with the territory.

He comes with a bitten-off shout before she can come herself, though he at least lasted an admirable length of time this time around. Fool surprises her by replacing his cock with his fingers almost as soon as he pulls out, moving with far more finesse for hitting her sensitive spots as he fucks them through the mess he's left behind.

Her orgasm sweeps through her and he keeps moving his hand, drawing her climax out until she has to squirm away before it becomes too much.

He's still got one hand planted next to her on the hood of his car, bent over her, but the way she's folded up is getting uncomfortable and she pushes at him a little with her legs, until he moves to give her space. Her hip joints protest dully when she gets back to her feet, pulling up her leathers as she goes.

There's an impression of her body smeared onto the dust covering her car and she smirks a little to see it.

They've broken up just at the right moment; Furiosa can hear the echo of engines approaching from over the hill, and she watches as whatever languidness the fuck gave him vanishes in the face of potential danger. On a full moon market day she isn't overly worried about being attacked, especially considering they're at the racetrack, but she still seeks out the weight of her sidearm.

"This month's color is yellow," she tells him, and his forehead furrows in confusion. She doesn't stick around for him to remember about the tokens, just grabs her goggles and heads back for her bike.

 

"Where's your scarf?" Val greets her with back at camp when she shuts off her bike's rumbling engine.

Her hand flies up to her neck reflexively, as if that will make the fabric appear. She must have left it behind when she left the Fool, and been too buzzing from the race and the sex to notice on the way over. "I packed it away," Furiosa lies, unsure of why she's lying.

Valkyrie sees right through her, of course. "Love-token for whoever gave you that hickey?"

Damn, she'd hoped the mark would fade or at least blend in. She doesn't dignify the question with an answer, instead kicking Val's boots as she passes.

It's only the first day of the full moon so there's plenty of produce still in the store tent. Furiosa grabs a potato to cook over the fire and a handful of greens to eat raw and wonders if Fool will be leaving tonight, or if he'll stick around another day or two. She adjusts her hips and feels the slight ache there, savoring her body's memory of it.

"Found a new victim yet?" she asks, and Valkyrie groans.

"Is it too much to ask for that a man actually know his way around a vulva?"

Furiosa thinks about Fool's mouth and says nothing, turning her potato over on the coals.

"Ugh, at least I've gotten it over with already today," Valkyrie says. She looks down and pokes her lower abdomen. "Come on, work with me here."

"Please don't talk to your organs," Furiosa says lightly. She splits open her potato with a knife and sighs as the steam of it wafts into the cooling air. "Remember butter?"

It was a rare treat growing up but they'd had it every now and again, before the farms with animals started dying off.

"Chocolate," Val counters.

"Fish."

"Coconuts! Remember that time we had a coconut?"

Furiosa smiles at the memory, finding the weird fruit in the market and convincing the Mothers it was worth buying. Gertie has the shell on her still, polished into a nice set of cups. "Well," she says, "At least now we're old enough for the moonshine."

Valkyrie snickers but raises an imaginary glass for a toast.

   
  


There's plenty of business done once the sun goes down, but there are more entertainments than anything else. Artists looking to express themselves in music, with fire. Competitions and prizes to be won, games made more exciting by the cover of night. There's a fighting ring that usually crops up, nothing as grand as the Thunderdome but good enough for a little bloodsport.

Furiosa likes walking the market at night more for the energy of it than to buy or watch anything in particular. It's safer to go with a partner but she's never been shy about pulling a weapon should circumstances call for it.

She drifts by a makeshift stage, someone bashing out what might be generously called a song while people writhe together, but tonight her feet are pulling her towards the fighting pit.

She elbows her way into a spot where she can see the action, wondering if maybe she should jump in at some point. The race yesterday only reminded her of the thrill of a challenge and she thinks a little blood in her mouth might be exactly what she needs to sleep soundly tonight.

The current fighters are clearly too fucked up to be doing anything more than flailing wildly, and she wonders at what point someone will separate them, or if they'll just eventually collapse onto the sand. She lifts her eyes from them and sizes up what sort of opponents she might be up against if she decides to fight, and can't help the smile that breaks across her face when she spots Fool.

He'd be a good challenge, only as tall as her but broad, thick with muscle. And if he was once a trained MFP himself rather than stealing that car...

Furiosa works her way closer to the edge of the circle and sees the moment his eyes catch on her. She raises her eyebrows and sends a significant glance towards the listing fighters in the ring. He does nothing for a moment and she wonders if her meaning came across, but then he's nodding, and she flashes her teeth.

There's an actual ring set up on the ground tonight, with a barrier about waist-high to tell her this isn't entirely informal. It takes her a few moments to find one of the ringleaders and she shoves her way over to them.

"I've got an opponent," she calls to them over the noise of the ground.

They glance at her and shrug. "Two up ahead of you."

She nods and finds Fool again, showing him three fingers and figuring even if he doesn't get it it'll be pretty easy to join the ring when she steps in. He sends her a thumb's up back.

The drunken pair are hauled away and replaced, this fight far more violent. The crowd chants for blood and she lets the energy of it run through her, until she's flexing in place, eager. A drummer's beat from somewhere nearby is reverberating through the air and her heart is beating in anticipation as she shouts along with the others at the fighters.

By the time the second pair are wrestling she's having to restrain herself from jumping in. The ringleader takes her gun for safekeeping but doesn't say a word about her metal arm, or the knife she has sheathed on her belt. She doesn't plan on using deadly force anyway, not for a sparring fight like this against her Fool, but she appreciates having the option.

And then it's her turn to step inside the ring, and she bounces lightly on the balls of her feet as she waits for Fool to join her. He's only a moment behind and they face off, waiting to see who will act first.

Furiosa circles in closer to the center and he follows, until she abruptly makes a rush at him. He isn't ready for her and she takes him down, though he recovers quickly. Not slamming his head in with her prosthetic hand is a challenge and she wonders if she should have left it off after all, the thought a distraction that means he gets the better of her, wrestling her into the ground.

She does throw sand in his face before remembering she probably shouldn't in a friendly fight, but he doesn't do more than growl his displeasure. They break apart and get their feet under them again, squaring off.

He's the one to attack this time, a charge she twists away from but can't avoid entirely; he doesn't pull her to the ground but gets his arm around her neck, and she barely resists kicking back to hit his braced knee. Instead she slams her elbow into his stomach hard enough to force him off-balance and pivots her weight forward, rolling him over her shoulder.

His hold on her is good enough that she goes with him, but the double impact of their fall means she can break away, and they're wrestling on the ground again.

There's blood and dust and salt on Furiosa's tongue and her body is singing with adrenaline; she feels him hard in his leathers and grinds herself against him, throwing a punch the next moment.

It ends abruptly, with the Fool somehow getting both her wrists in his grip and his weight down on her middle, secure enough that she can't fight her way out. She breathes in the sand of the circle and hears the sound of the crowd filter back in through her ears.

"Yield," she says in a hoarse voice before the ringleaders decide to call it.

His hips rock just the slightest bit down on her so she can feel his cock like a hot brand against her body before he gets up, offering her a hand to help her off the ground. She takes it and once she's up gives him a significant look before orientating herself to figure out where she needs to go to get her gun back.

He's not so much of a fool because he's waiting for her outside the circle of screaming, blood from a hit she doesn't remember landing streaking down his cheek. She grabs the front of his jacket to kiss him, the clash of lips and tongues still feeling halfway like a battle between them. "You parked close?"

He grunts, and wraps an arm around her waist to lead her further into the shadows. They walk with steady purpose until reaching his car, tucked into the dark against a rock outcropping, and then Furiosa shoves him up against the side of it, kissing him hard.

He tugs her close to retaliate, cock a hard line rubbing against her hip.

She reaches her flesh hand down and squeezes him through his leathers, biting his lip when he breaks the kiss to groan deep in his throat. She drops down her her knees and tugs at his belt buckle, glancing up when he makes a surprised noise; he doesn't look like he's protesting, and she smirks inwardly before getting his cock out into the open air.

She licks her palm and wraps it around his shaft, then laves her tongue against the tip where he's leaking a little. When she sucks him into her mouth he lets out a strangled noise, and she ignores him to focus on the cock lying heavy on her tongue. It's been a while since she sucked someone off but the motions return to her easily, swirling her tongue and hollowing her cheeks.

Fool twitches his hips forward and she isn't in the mood to let him fuck her face so she lays her metal arm across his pelvis, more or less pinning him in place. She does give relaxing her throat a go, seeing how much of him she can fit inside her mouth, fingers moving to cup and roll his balls.

Above her he's gasping and grunting, one hand moving to rest on her head- not shoving her onto her cock, and she doesn't have enough hair for him to grab- the other audibly scrabbling against the metal of his car.

"Hey," he gets out, "I'm gonna. Gonna come."

Furiosa pulls off his cock with a filthy slick noise. "That's the idea."

He shakes his head. "I don't- can I fuck you?"

Her cunt clenches hungrily, but she's enjoying having him at her mercy, and she remembers how good he'd been with his mouth earlier. "You can eat me out 'til you're hard again," she offers. She's also sort of hoping that taking the edge off will help him last long enough for her to come around his cock, not that she's going to tell him so.

His nostrils flare and then he nods, hand stroking over the back of her head. She teases him a little, mouthing along his cock lightly before taking him back inside her mouth. He groans deeply and she bobs her head, swirling her tongue against the thick vein and sucking at the tip before it almost slips out between her lips, hand moving to jack him off in steady strokes.

"I'm," he gasps, and she hums permission. Fool starts coming and she does her best to swallow it down, sucking until he's finished and starting to go soft.

She pulls off and rubs away a smear of cum at the corner of her lips, releasing her hold on his hips as she rocks her weight back onto her heels. "Yeah?" she asks unnecessarily.

"Mm," he manages to get out.

She gets back up to her feet and if he minds that he can taste his seed in her mouth when she kisses him, he doesn't say anything about it. His breathing evens out, and after a few minutes of languid making out he cups a hand against her cunt with an inquisitive noise.

Furiosa pushes into the touch, wet and aching to get some sort of contact. She sort of likes the idea of just standing like this while _he_ kneels, but she doesn't particularly want her bare ass facing the wastes with no eyes on watch.

It doesn't take much to maneuver them so she's sitting in the driver's seat of his car, leathers pulled down her legs and knees hooked over his shoulders. His mouth is hot against the folds of her cunt, eager as he licks and sucks her. He's as good as she remembered and she rolls her hips up into him, panting as he works her to a swift climax.

She can ostensibly look out to check if anyone's approaching like this, but it's hard to focus on anything but the sight of him buried between her thighs. Fuck but she's going to miss his mouth when he inevitably decides to move on.

When she pushes him away at last after pulling a devastating string of orgasms out of her he isn't ready to go again yet and she needs a break anyway, though she does want him inside her before she leaves if he can manage. He rummages around the trash filling his car until he comes up with a blanket to spread over the ground, and she uncorks the flask hanging off her belt.

Furiosa takes a pull of it and then offers it to him. There isn't much but it's pretty potent, distilled instead of brewed.

He accepts, leaning against the side of his car with her. "Hm," he hums when he's sipped it, "Is that..."

"Mint and juniper," she says, savoring the herbal taste on her tongue.

He hums again, and they trade the flask back and forth. "Where does it come from?"

"The Green Place," she says. "We've held it since before the end." And they've kept it afterwards by being ruthless in defending it, keeping as much alive as they can against the creeping salinity to the east and spreading muck of the west. She remembers when every rolling hill was green, when there was more dirt than sand and a big pond you could swim in, no need to shoot anything to be safe.

It feels like something out of a dream now.

"S'good," Fool says, and it's her turn to hum.

She offers him the last of the flask and when it's empty kisses him, his lips flavored like herbs against hers. The race, the fight, their earlier fucks- added to the booze warming her core she feels languid, the buzz in her veins dimmed down to a pleasant warmth that's no less enticing.

She twists to sit in his lap, the slide of their mouths and the way his hands roam coiling desire in her once more. It doesn't take very long before she can feel his cock hard between them when she grinds down, and she thinks this time things might just work out the way she wants them to.

She's never been opposed to projects, but she likes knowing there's a payoff to be had.

Furiosa lets herself be rolled underneath him, his body coming to rest heavy and solid cradled between her legs. It's an inelegant affair getting her trousers off with him being no help at all, her head swimming with evidence of how strong the drink was, but then he's sliding his cock inside of her while she lets out a low moan at the feeling.

When he starts moving it's nowhere as fast or rough as the day before, not the pace she normally prefers, but it matches the tipsy warmth under her skin well enough. She reaches down to touch herself but his hand gets there first, and she sucks in a surprised breath as he starts rubbing her clit perfectly in time with how he's rocking his hips against her. Instead she just wraps herself around him and lets him do the work, angling her hips so his cock hits her just right.

She muffles a moan against his neck as he works her to orgasm, a long shuddery thing he fucks her through before coming himself a few strokes later. It's infinitely more successful than their first attempt, good enough that she's glad she stuck with it.

He rests on his forearms above her, kissing her again while they both wind down.

She should clean up, get dressed, and head back to camp, but she finds that she doesn't particularly want to. Fool doesn't exactly chase her off either, saying nothing even after she's wrestled her way back into her leathers.

So instead she hunkers down on the sandy blanket with him, the sky spinning ever so slightly above her in a way that speaks to too much alcohol, and drifts off to sleep bedded down companionably next to him.

 

Furiosa wakes with a start, rolling away from the source of noise and movement before she's even opened her eyes. When she does, she finds the Fool sitting up and shaking his head, one hand pressed to his forehead.

"Bad dream?" she croaks out, her mouth tasting like sand.

His attention snaps to her and he looks startled, like he'd forgotten she was there.

The night is still dark but it's been a few hours, she would wager; she's sobered enough that she knows it would be better for her to get back anyway. "I should be heading back," she says, getting to her feet.

He makes a vague noise, not a protest, then clears his throat. "You left your scarf."

That sort of thing is usually finders keepers, but she certainly isn't going to stop him if he wants to return it. Furiosa hums an agreement and he digs through his discarded bag for a moment before coming up with it. "Thank you," she says, taking the patterned fabric from him.

He nods his head a little, and she can see that he's still unsettled by whatever he was dreaming about but she has a pretty good feeling that he isn't the type to want company while he wrestles with his thoughts.

The trade post is nearly empty this time of night, and she could probably crawl into her tent with Joy and Valkyrie to get another few hours of sleep but she instead rounds the corner to the store tent, closed up but under constant guard.

Annie looks asleep where she's leaning against one of the the tent's posts, but Furiosa knows better. She sits down at the other corner and waits to see if her absence and return will be remarked on or not. When no comment is forthcoming she pulls out her pistol and starts disassembling it to be cleaned, a mindless task she can do while she waits for the day to begin.

"You're keeping your guard up?" Annie says after a while, her eyes still closed or close enough to appear so in the dark.

Furiosa hums an affirmative, not fumbling her movements with the metal and not offended by the question, which speaks more to concern than criticism. She should clean up her prosthesis next; there's undoubtedly dirt ground into it from the fight, and it uses pretty much the same supplies as her gun-cleaning kit anyway.

Annie has nothing else to say, no warning about the dangers of men and getting close to them when _that's_ a lesson all Vuvalini learn early, and they spend the rest of the time until sunrise in easy silence.


	3. Chapter 3

It's still early in the day when Foxglove comes pelting through the middle of the camp, calling out her name.

"What is it?" Furiosa asks as the girl skids to a halt in front of her. She's alarmed, but not panicked; anything dire would have been relayed by the entire tribe, not just her own Initiate.

"There's someone at the gate asking for you," Foxglove pants out, bent over with hands on her scabbed knees.

She's surprised to hear it- she's not one for forging connections outside her own clan- but doesn't hesitate as she grabs up her rifle and heads in the direction Fox came from. The girl catches up after a few strides, saying nothing as she trails behind; too curious to keep away, but knowing when to hold her tongue. Or perhaps just still too out-of-breath to speak.

Furiosa's surprised to crest the sand dune and see the Fool down at the northern crow's post, hands awkwardly held loose and empty while a guard keeps him in her sights.

"This fella says he knows you," Maadie calls to her.

"He does," she replies, and sees him relax fractionally at the endorsement. "What are you doing here?" she asks when she's within comfortable talking distance. The urge to close the distance between them and greet him like he's one of her clansmen bubbles up in her, but she can see that he's twitchy, and besides, it's supposed to mean something to greet a person like that.

"News," he says, and glances sidelong at where Maadie still has a rifle pointed his way before focusing on her again. "Raiders coming through. Heard 'em talking."

Furiosa sucks in a quiet breath. She doesn't know how he found out, or how he found the Green Place at all, but she trusts that he isn't lying. And if it turns out that he is- she likes him alright, but not nearly enough to let him threaten her home.

"Come with me," she says, and he frowns a little, glancing back over his shoulder where a familiar car sits. "Maadie'll watch your ride," she offers. Maadie snorts at the presumption, but doesn't correct her.

He doesn't seem eager but nods, and starts to follow her back towards their current camp. Foxglove trots alongside him, not making any effort to disguise her curiosity, and he sends her vaguely bemused looks in return.

"Fox," Furiosa says, "Get a council together."

"Yes'm," Foxglove replies, more cheek than respect, and darts off ahead.

"How did you find us?" she asks when the girl is out of earshot.

"Rumors," Fool says with a shrug. "Only so much green around."

Hardly the most comforting explanation, but far from the least, either. She wonders why he's bothering to warn them but doesn't dare herself to ask. There is no barrier fence around the Green Place, the miles of sand and muck sufficient to be a buffer from the outside when combined with their watch system, and so when they draw close enough it simply unfolds in organic lines before them.

In years gone by it would have been truly a sight to behold; now it's dusty and tired, greens sunburned and parched- and yet still more than most scavs could even dream of anymore.

By the time she reaches the shaded meeting pavilion Foxglove's rounded up some of the elders from every clan, a dozen or so all told, and they eye the Fool warily but accept him as being under her control.

"What's this about raiders?" Gale asks.

"There's a band coming through," he says, jerking a thumb over his shoulder the way they'd come. "A day out, maybe. They were talking about this place."

"And you've led them right here," Tanner says accusingly.

He shakes his head. "I wasn't followed."

"How many were there?" Furiosa asks before they can get distracted interrogating him about the wrong things. "Vehicles? Weapons?"

"Mm, twenty?" he says, face creasing as he concentrates. "Mostly cars, trucks. Don't think they had any-" his hand makes a gesture, fingers curling in and then splaying out- "any explosives."

Which still leaves the door wide open. Probably not flamethrowers unless they have a Gastown connection, but bullets aren't so difficult to come across when you're determined.

"It's a credible threat," Mozzie says, and the others nod in agreement.

"From the North, you say?" Gale asks.

Fool nods. "And moving fast."

They quiz him for every bit of information he knows, until Furiosa can see him growing uneasy from all the questioning, weight shifting from foot to foot and eyes straying. She could very easily stay and deliberate with the council- she knows as much about defense as anyone else here- but instead she brushes her fingers on the sleeve of his jacket to get his attention.

"They don't need you for this part," she says when he jerks his gaze her way. She nods her head towards the hearth fire and when she steps away he follows. There's always a pot of tea slung over the coals, whether there's anything actually burning or not, and she grabs the cup off her belt to pour some into.

He takes it with a surprised look, but gives a little hum of thanks as he sips it. "Mint," he says, and she remembers the taste of herbs on his lips the last time they met.

"You don't have to stay," she says, because he doesn't. "But we'd be glad for another gunner."

Fool sends her an inscrutable look over the rim of the cup.

"We'd pay, of course," she adds. His eyes flick from her face to the sprawl of greenery growing out of the dirt around them, their living wealth.

Slowly, he nods.

 

The raiders arrive in a cloud of dust and smoke an hour or two before sunset, and Furiosa perches in the Fool's passenger side with her rifle and sidearm while he drives. She'd gotten the feeling he was good from their race but it's something else now, nothing playful in the air as he weaves into the fray.

He's more wasteful with bullets than any of the Vuvalini, but he still lands a fair number of shots. It's amazing how easy it is to find a rhythm with him, to predict what turns he's going to make and what targets to aim at; she exchanges one gun for another and discovers that he's loaded it for her in the meantime.

The battle lasts an eternity and no time at all, the way battles always do, until the last of the raiders is chased off without a single prisoner taken, the plants untrampled.

Fool looks displeased that his car is pressed into service carrying Bella's dead body back, but he doesn't actually say anything as he follows the line of bikes back towards camp. There's stew waiting for them, and bandages for the wounded. Foxglove continues to look mutinous at having been left behind but she's still young, too unsteady to aim on pillion and too reckless to be allowed to drive.

"She yours?" he asks when the girl's stomped away again.

Furiosa shakes her head. "My first Initiate," she says with a faint smile. It's not completely different from being her birth-mother she supposes, but it isn't nearly the same, either.

He hums a little and scrapes at the battered bowl he's eating out of. It's late enough that there's no sense turning him away until morning, not that he's volunteering to go.

"We have water you can wash in," she tells him.

Fool's eyebrows rise nearly to his hairline.

"It'll water the plants tomorrow," she says, and the surprise gives way to understanding. Even with the recycling they don't have much to waste, but she expects he hasn't washed in a long time and it's thanks partly to him that they're even still here to offer.

Baths are usually undertaken during the day, when the lukewarm water is a welcome relief from the heat of the sun; at night the tub is deserted, the soap suds all collapsed. Furiosa hangs a dim lantern on one of the posts and starts shucking her clothes, more layers than she usually wears around him now that she isn't at the market. She glances over at where he isn't doing the same, hands holding the hem of his shirt almost nervously.

She wonders when the last time he stripped down entirely was, if it was back before.

"It's safe enough," she says, stepping out of her trousers and underwear to stand naked in the shadowy tent, bumps prickling all over her skin at the chill and the awareness of his presence. It's unlikely for the raiders to come back so soon, and even if they do the two of them will have plenty of warning to get ready- and none of the Vuvalini will hurt him without provocation, least of all her.

His eyes settle on her and drag up and down the length of her body, and she realizes with a shiver that she's never been entirely naked with a man before, not like this where he can _look_ at her. She'd thought this would just be utility, same as any other time she's scrubbed off, but she can feel her nipples tighten in a way that's only partly the cold, a kernel of desire heating up in her belly.

Fool pulls off his shirt, then bends down to undo his boots. There's black ink running across the backs of his shoulders and she wonders what sort of tattoo he has, if he'll let her examine it. She turns away to dip one of their rags into the soapy bucket, getting a start on washing away the dirt and gunpowder on her skin.

He steps into the catch-pan next to her and she spares a moment to look him over in turn, the strength in his body, the scars roughing up his skin. She wants to touch him all over, but even with the pretense of washing she doesn't want to scare him away. Instead she hands him a second rag and goes back to rubbing down her arms and legs.

"I could get your back," he offers after a minute of washing in silence, a surprise.

Furiosa slants a look at him, but doesn't see anything in his expression that makes her wary. Rather than answer in words she turns herself around, a little shiver at the press of damp cold rag only exacerbated by the knowledge that he's in her blind spot, that she can see for herself how powerful his body is if he decided to try something.

He stands close enough to her that she can feel the heat of his body in the air between them, and it's no surprise whatsoever when the washcloth roams and lingers more than strictly necessary. She turns until she can draw him in to kiss, his lips hot against the cold night.

His free hand moves to her chest, cupping one of her breasts, and she debates the merits of keeping up the pretense of this being a wash. Except he really could use a scrub, and if she helps out she can find out what the tattoo on his back is.

"You're still dirty," she says, drawing away from his mouth reluctantly.

Fool hums and doesn't move immediately, waiting for her to twist out of his embrace. She uses the pretense of rinsing out her washcloth to take another good look at him, the sturdy health of his body glowing under the warm light of the lantern, his own gaze hot on her, cock hanging heavy between his legs.

He flinches when she makes to step behind him, and she pauses. "You got mine," she says.

He's tense but after a moment he nods, tilting himself to present his broad back to her. Furiosa runs her cloth over his skin, parsing out the markings there. There's so little need for reading that she's out of practice, and it takes her time to realize that the letters aren't jumbled so much as entirely upside-down. Once she has that the words are easier to make sense of, and she has to bite back a surprised noise at the implications of them.

Everyone knows horror stories about the Citadel, but she wouldn't have believed that they really drain people for their blood, and to read that they put a _muzzle_ on him, like a dog...

She finishes wiping him down with more utilitarian strokes, angry at his treatment and angry that she won't be able to just appreciate the view if she ever gets him shirtless again. After she's cleaned the last of his back she kisses the taut curve of his shoulder well away from the scarred marking at the base of his spine and reaches around his front, safer territory.

"We have a tattooist," she offers quietly, her hand splayed out on the skin of his belly, fingers playing with the coarse hair leading down to where she'd like to be touching.

His shoulders rise a little and fall in a shrug, and he turns around to stand face-to-face with her without answering. She keeps her hand on the skin of his stomach when she kisses him, feeling the way his muscles shift as he breathes until he starts relaxing against her again, hands coming up to the back of her neck, down to the curve of her ass.

It wouldn't be out of the question to just stay here in the wash tent, but the water sloshing at their feet is frigid and she's tired enough after the day to want someplace soft to rest against. Furiosa still teases her fingers against the skin of his cock anyway, growing harder with every beat of his heart.

"Come on," she says when his mouth starts wandering. "I know someplace better."

He hums agreeably, and they fumble back into their clothes still damp. She takes the time to empty the wash-pan back into the collection bucket so the water doesn't evaporate or spill, but only haphazardly cleans up the rest.

Her tent is a few rows over, but the giddiness following the successful battle has given way to exhaustion, and almost no one but those out on watch are up still to see them as they make their way over.

She turns the lantern almost all the way off, just a faint glow to illuminate the space inside her small tent when she tugs the flap closed. She only rarely has a second person inside with her and the space is cramped, but it isn't as if they want very much distance between them. Furiosa pulls him down against her, kissing him hungrily, and regrets that they'd had to get even partially dressed again to get here.

The walk over has done very little to make his erection flag, which is just a well because she's growing more aroused with every movement they make together, mouths sliding together and fingers rucking up their hastily redressed clothes.

She settles him between her thighs but to her surprise he doesn't dive right in; he feels her all over instead, hands trailing from where her shirt is rucked up under her arms down to nearly her knees, calloused fingers rubbing careful over the softer bits of her skin. She lets out a frustrated noise and grabs for his hair to tug, until finally one of his hands cups over her cunt where she's wet and aching for touch. Fool rubs the heel of his hand up against her mons, still not where she really wants him, and feeling impatiently needy she bucks up under him until his fingers curl and slip up into the folds of her pussy.

His touch is almost too light at first, almost tentative despite his earlier roughness or perhaps teasing, but she gives a low moan of encouragement and he picks things up. Fuck, his mouth is divine but his hands aren't half bad either, and when he starts playing with her breasts using his free hand and his mouth she's almost embarrassed by how quickly she comes now that he's focusing on where she wants, the sensations rising up through her in a rush.

Furiosa grabs the collar of his shirt and tugs him closer to her face, so her lips brush against the stubble on his cheeks. "You should fuck me."

He slots his mouth against hers in answer, fingers still rubbing at her cunt. For a long moment she thinks maybe this is what she's going to get, that despite his body's apparent interest he isn't going to screw her tonight, but then he pulls himself back enough to shove his pants down his thighs, cock standing proud.

She sighs when he slides inside of her, pushing in one smooth movement to bury himself to the hilt. He keeps his hand on her while he fucks her, sometimes touching her directly and sometimes drawing back to rub just off-center, but it's enough for her to work herself into coming a second time before very long. She has to stifle the noises she wants to make in the curve of his shoulder, knowing there's not going to be any doubt about what they're up to but not wanting to put on a show, either.

His rhythm falters as he readjusts but he doesn't come himself, a vast improvement from their first fuck, and with a muted oath he's thrusting inside her again with renewed intensity. She tilts the stance of her hips and the angle changes just slightly, the broad head of his cock now hitting deep enough inside of her that she gasps raggedly every time he bottoms out.

Her hand is digging into the back of his neck, raised scar tissue under her fingers, and she wants to do more than just hold on but his pace is breakneck, and she feels like if she lets go she'll be swept away.

Fool scrapes his teeth against her nipple before sucking on it, the fingers at her clit suddenly moving with intent again like he's remembered how. She squirms underneath him, half trying to get closer and half trying to get away from so much stimulation.

He switches to mouthing at her other breast and she cries out more loudly than she'd intended as she climaxes, caught off guard and feeling slightly overwhelmed. He groans deep in his chest and his hips stutter against hers, and it's just as well that he can't hold his orgasm back because she's not sure she'd want to keep going right then.

She lets him rock against her as he comes down, his softening cock sliding through the mess they've created, but reaches to tug his hand away from her oversensitive clit. His skin is sweaty against hers even with the night's chill, and she thinks ruefully that maybe they should have waited until _after_ to scrub off.

Furiosa is glad when he rolls off her and to the side instead, shoulder nudging their lantern enough to make the tiny flame wobble but not quite blow out.

It takes a minute for her breath to catch up with her fully and she spends the time looking at the familiar pattern of her tent's ceiling, suddenly and deeply aware that she has never fucked a man here, in the bed she sleeps in. His eyes are hooded when she glances at him, whatever thoughts he might have hidden from her gaze.

She fell asleep next to him once, and woke up to the tune of nightmares. Hers or his, she still isn't sure. Surely inviting him to sleep next to her here in this enclosed space would only compound the danger of it, but all the same she doesn't point out that his car is parked just beyond the tents.

When her heart is no longer racing she pulls her leathers back on and tugs her tunic down, the Fool doing up his own trousers again. He looks at her and licks his lips, then slides his gaze away.

"Get the light?" she asks as she grabs the blanket she usually wraps herself up in. He can take it as a cue to stay or leave as he likes, she's decided. After all of this she doesn't think he'd slit her throat in the middle of the night, and if he tries to steal while in the middle of the Green Place, well, the Vuvalini have never been hesitant to plant bullets when necessary.

He smothers the wick and the tent goes completely dark.

Furiosa pulls the blanket over her and feels more than sees him gathering up his jacket, the leather creaking against itself, and rather than leave he bundles himself up next to her on her narrow sleeping mat. Falling asleep next to him that first time was an accident, something partly to blame on the alcohol she'd been drinking; by contrast she's sober now, and probably should kick him out now that she has no use for him. She moves so she's facing him instead, almost tucking herself against his side, and takes steady breaths of the scent rising off his skin until she slips into rest.

 

The Fool leaves in the morning with a few potatoes and a bag of grains, among other trinkets- some traded, some given in thanks- and as soon as he's gone Valkyrie punches her in the shoulder.

"I can't _believe_ you," she says, mock grievance in her voice. "You never even offered to share!"

"You snooze, you lose," Furiosa replies breezily. Inwardly she bristles at the thought of sharing her Fool- Valkyrie uses and abuses her men since she cares so little for them, and he's the type to react poorly to that attitude. She almost feels as if she's had to cultivate his interest like a seedling, something needing shelter and care.

"D'you think it's better odds to stick with one?" Joy asks, sounding more scientific than personally curious.

"Nah," Valkyrie says dismissively. Still, she looks thoughtfully off in the direction Fool left in.

"You'll have to find your own if you want to test that theory," Furiosa says, more firmness in her voice than she intends. There isn't much she declares hers and hers alone- her prosthesis, the knife her birth-mother gave her, the stone from the first peach she grew- but she's putting her foot down on this.

Valkyrie rolls her eyes but doesn't keep going to rile her up further.

   
  


Everyone is on edge the rest of the month, waiting for the raiders to come back, but the horizon stays clear of everything except the usual chance strays and wanderers. Furiosa quietly wonders if the Fool will return now that he knows for sure where they are, if he'll join the ranks of satellites orbiting their small patch of green. If he'd come back for the food and rest, or for her.

But she doesn't see his car at all and she pushes the idea out of her mind.

 


	4. Chapter 4

The Mothers deliberate about it for days, but in the end decide to skip the month's usual trading run. So soon after a raid they're still vulnerable, and separating into factions strong enough to protect both the Green Place and their shipment leaves them open to attack from too many places. They can make do with missing a month, though it means they'll double up their load for the next to get rid of the produce going spotty _and_ honor the skipped-over tokens floating around.

Furiosa tries not to be disappointed when this decision is reached- even if they did load up for trading, it's just as likely she would be assigned to home duty anyway, and it's not as if there's any guarantee of Fool showing up to the trading post either.

"Val says you're moping," Foxglove tells her during a quiet night of weaving straw into baskets, the campfire supplemented by a nearly-full moon's light.

"Does she, now?" Furiosa replies, casting a look across the fire to where Valkyrie is doing something with crow feathers. One day she'll have gathered enough to make her bike lift up and fly, or so Val has liked to say since they were just Initiates themselves.

"Mhm," Fox hums. Her fingers are nimble on the strands of straw, knotting complicated designs that she learned from Weaver. Furiosa never felt the urge to learn more than the basic pattern, and now with just the one hand she has a reason to excuse her disinterest. "I don't get it," Foxglove says, "What's so special about that man? He was hairy. And he smelled."

"I'm missing out on trading," Furiosa says pointedly, ready to defend herself- but it's only Fox, and she's supposed to be teaching her all about how the world works, anyway. "The sex is good," she says in as deadpan a tone as she can manage.

" _Ew_ ," Foxglove says, but then cocks her head to the side thoughtfully, fingers not stilling as they weave straw end-over-end. "Really? How can you tell if it's gonna be worth it?"

Furiosa looks down at her own basket, the shape a little lopsided, and wonders about the odds of Fox spreading the story to everyone if she decides to tell just how _not_ worth it their first attempt was. "You can't, really," she says. Why had she decided to sleep with Fool, instead of any other? Certainly not just because he was new- the trade post has its share of regulars, but the turnover of strangers is still substantial. "Sometimes you just have to take the risk."

Foxglove is frowning a little when she glances over. "I still think he smells."

She huffs a laugh. "Everyone smells," Furiosa says. And her Fool at least has a clean scent, sand and sweat and motor oil rather than some other substances she could name. "And not everyone has water to wash in like we do. You're living in the lap of luxury." She wonders if they should bring Foxglove to the trade post next month and let her get a taste of how most wastelanders live. The girl's old enough for it, just past her fourteenth year and reliable enough about following orders to be kept safe.

"Yeah, but still," Fox says, and turns her basket over to start on a new section. "Valkyrie has a point about the moping."

Furiosa narrows her eyes; she really isn't _moping_ , she's just disappointed that she's missing out on her chance to get some always-needed trading done, and to socialize with people she hasn't known since birth. And alright yes, she admits with an inwards sigh, she wishes she could be enjoying Fool's company some more instead of hanging around camp like a normal night. Rather than say so out loud she balls up some of the loose straw into a tight little knot and lobs it over to where Val's sitting, the projectile bouncing off her shoulder.

"Don't take your emotions out on me," Valkyrie says without even looking up, brushing the straw off her pile of feathers.

"Mind your own business," Furiosa shoots back. Val snorts, and Foxglove looks far too amused, and she hates them all.

   
  


They can't afford to miss two months in a row and so when the horizon remains clear of threats Furiosa packs up to leave for the trading post along with the usual crew. She'd floated the idea of Foxglove coming along but they've decided to wait another turn, just in case there's any trouble because of their unannounced absence.

When they arrive things seem tense but not overly so, rumors of the attack spreading as reason enough for the Vuvalini to lay low a while. Accepting what should have been last month's tokens as well as this month's smooths over ruffled feathers as well, and by the second day Furiosa feels confident enough about their position to go out wandering for a while.

There's due to be a race and as she makes for the track she spots the Fool's car perched over the racetrack, a familiar black shape against the red dust. She changes direction to head away from her usual watching spot when she realizes that she recognizes the car, and the figure standing next to it.

He sees her coming a long way off- there isn't much cover here, even if she did have some reason to want to sneak up on him- and he's relaxed when she approaches, body language loose.

"Spot taken?" she asks for form's sake.

He shakes his head and she comes to stand next to him, facing out towards the gathering crowd below. They're too high up for any words to reach them, just the general babbling noise of people, and the racers themselves are posed in miniature alongside their toy-sized cars.

He clears his throat. "Things okay?"

Furiosa tilts her head to look at him, remembering how it had felt to fight alongside him, how her chest reverberated with their gunshots. "Yeah," she says with a nod, "It's been quiet."

He nods his head and hums, a pleased noise. She wonders on what level he cares, if it's simply that he was involved and wants to see the job done. He doesn't say anything else and down below she can hear engines revving, a mechanical roar that has her pulse ticking up in sympathy.

"Who's your eye on?" she asks, nodding down towards the racers. She's arrived just in time because they'll be starting any moment.

Fool is quiet for a moment, considering, before he says, "The red."

The crack of a gun going off is almost swallowed by the noise of the cars leaping forward, full steam ahead.

"I'm calling the blue," she says. There are two cars sporting blue, one more-or-less all over under the rust and the other painted on only in stripes. She doesn't clarify which she means and he doesn't ask, which suggests either he's that confident about his own choice, or he's content to let her cheat a victory.

The cars chase each other around the same track the two of them raced on, and the memory of her victory then kindles heat in her veins. It isn't nearly as exciting to be watching as it is to be actually racing, but she doesn't need the excuse, anyway.

The blue-striped car sideswipes one that's black-and-chrome, the both of them tumbling away from the packed racetrack in a cloud of dust and smoke. The all-over blue is still in the running, as is the red car Fool picked, but the final lap is rapidly approaching.

"Come on," she murmurs, feeling the crowd below straining forward in anticipation, cheers and shouts floating through the air.

The red car is nearly nose-to-nose with another, fighting for the lead spot, her blue trying to shimmy its way through to the front. Furiosa can't clearly see which car wins but it isn't the one she'd picked, and she lets out a disgusted noise at the outcome.

Fool looks pleased when she glances at him, expression turning a bit smug when he catches her gaze.

"There'll be more heats," she says.

He hums in reply, and she can faintly hear gravel crunching under his shoes as he adjusts his stance. It takes a few minutes for the track to clear, the larger bits and pieces that'd fallen off hastily dragged off to the sides, and a new crop of cars takes to the starting line. She can imagine what the announcer is saying thanks to many races spent listening to him and doesn't think she's missing out by being this far up.

"The white," the Fool says without prompting. It's a mean-looking car, but she has the advantage of knowing its driver.

"The red," she counters. His lips curl into a lazy smile, and they settle in to wait for the heat to begin.

The silence isn't uncomfortable, but she still breaks it. "How _did_ you get counterfeit Gastown tokens?" It's been months since he showed up with them and she has no idea who even made them, if not himself.

"Nicked 'em," he says with a shrug.

"From where?" she says; the fact that he stole them is hardly a shocking revelation.

The leather of his gear creaks as he seems to debate his answer. "Lots of places make them," he says, a thread of defensiveness in his voice. "I don't remember the name."

It's not the answer she wanted- though why it matters to her she doesn't know, it isn't like she has any intention to trade in counterfeit when it could damage their reputation- but it sounds honest, and Furiosa accepts that it's the best she's going to get.

The moment is saved by the starting gun going off, and everyone's attention hones in on the racers tearing up the track. The white car makes it to the middle of the pack but gets pushed back with every change-up, exactly the way she was expecting; the driver is always too cautious, afraid of ruining his car.

The red car she'd picked surges forward, eventually taking third. Not as good as if they'd come in first, but definitely beating out the white which sneaks in second-to-last.

Furiosa knocks her shoulder against his gently, the metal of her shoulderpiece scraping against the plastic of his, and he lets out a playful-sounding huff. Of course this victory of hers means they're tied now, and three races also tends to be what the crowds can handle before getting restless and needing something to be a new distraction.

"You could be down there," she says when they start setting up for the next race. His car's fast enough to do respectably, and his driving skills are expert enough to make it a good show.

He grunts, and she flicks her gaze his way. "Not worth the guzz," he says.

"You get more as the prize," she points out. The losers waste a couple of gallons, sure, but the top three get at least something for their tanks.

But he doesn't look enticed at all, shaking his head. She wonders why he was so willing to race her, then; a basket of veggies really isn't any harder to come by than a tank of gas, if you have the quality of salvage he has rattling around. She shrugs, and looks back down at the new crop of racers lining up.

"The black," Fool says, and she _tsks_.

"They're mine," she says.

He hums a little, considering, and then says, "Both of us pick again."

Not conceding his choice to her or stubbornly fighting her off; she's annoyed by how much she likes his way of handling things. "The unpainted one," she says after a moment of deliberation.

"Blue," he says.

She finds herself smiling at him and he begins to return the look, but the starting gun goes off a second later, drawing her attention away. This third race is brutal, exhaust steaming up hot even to them up on the hill, metal screaming against metal as the cars jockey for position. There must be some grand prize offered for the competition to be so fierce, but Furiosa hadn't even been trying to hear what the announcer had to say.

Her pick gets rammed but keeps going, while the Fool's blue keeps to the edges of the fray. Neither is very close to the front of the pack, but an overall win would just be a victory lap for their little competition.

She finds herself leaning forward, like she can give her chosen car extra speed. Down below the crowd is screaming, cheering and heckling; a fight breaks out, hardly surprising given the atmosphere.

The unpainted car is starting to limp, smoke trickling out from under the bonnet, while the blue car darts between two others to slip into a higher position. Furiosa clenches her fingers in anticipation even as she can see the outcome like an inevitability.

Fool says nothing and she doesn't lift her eyes from the race drawing to a close but she can sense the satisfaction he's radiating.

It's over in a flash, the black car taking first and the blue second, her pick scraping by in the middle of the rush. The crowd screams, one huge cacophonous noise of ecstasy, while she lets out a groan of frustrated disappointment.

She savors the feeling of tenseness a moment before breathing out, and turns to face him. "You win," she says.

His pleasure is too open and honest for her to really call it smugness now that she's looking at him; he reminds her more of a dog that's playing a game, glad to be involved one way or another. He hums, and tilts his head like he's considering something. " _What_ did I win?"

The last bet they'd wagered had ended with him pounding into her on the hood of his car; they hadn't set terms for this one, either, but she can think of a few ideas. She's only really aware that she's licked her lips when his eyes focus on them, gaze darkening.

"Someplace quieter?" she suggests. She doesn't think he's the type to get off on being so close to other people, and she certainly appreciates having privacy when it's an option. There's still another few rounds of games and racing, probably, but if he wants to stay he doesn't say anything.

He makes a quiet noise in reply and takes a half-step closer to his car. Furiosa brushes against him as she makes for the passenger side, the place a seat should be still nothing but a jumble of trash that she perches herself on.

He probably _could_ have done well in the races if he'd entered, she thinks to herself as the car rumble so life. He'd nearly beat her the time they'd raced, after all, and she doesn't give any quarter. But it _is_ a risk, she allows. He clearly has no clan he's part of, no affiliations beyond the fact that she keeps meeting up with him, and that means if his car were to get jacked up that he'd be screwed in the less-fun way.

She looks out the window and then turns his way, his hands casual on the wheel as he drives them through the rutted ground surrounding the trade post. He still hasn't said what he wants for his prize, but she leans over the gearstick until she's in his space, and puts her flesh-and-blood hand onto his crotch.

The Fool twitches, and makes a startled sort of noise, but before she can even begin drawing away he widens the spread of his legs. It's nothing to smirk over but she has to repress the urge anyway.

She rubs him through his leathers, his cock soft to start but quickly beginning to perk up with the attention. If the ground were smoother she thinks she'd take him inside her mouth, but as it is not wrenching him is going to be difficult enough with just her hand, to say nothing of adding teeth into the equation. Furiosa gives his stiffening cock a gentle squeeze before reaching for the laces on his fly.

The car accelerates a bit when she draws his cock out into the air and she looks at his face, his skin flushing and his eyes darting between his lap and the way ahead. She can't entirely smother her smirk this time; she enjoys the way his attention is so thoroughly hers, how easy it is to get him like this. Valkyrie would say something derisive about men and which head has the brain, as if _she's_ never been led around by her desires plenty of times herself, but she's decided to find his enthusiasm flattering.

She takes her hand back just enough to spit into her palm before wrapping it around his dick again, fingers stroking up and down his length. He groans, cock twitching in her grip. She has to twist and brace herself to get into a position where she can jerk him off easily, but once she has her balance it's easy, the swaying of the car only adding to her rhythm.

"Furiosa," he moans like he's going to tell her something, but doesn't follow it up with anything.

He's started leaking pre-cum and she spreads it around with her fingertips, uses it to ease her movements even more. The car abruptly jerks to a halt, Furiosa barely loosening her grip in time to avoid giving him an unpleasant tug. She lifts her head to check that there isn't any danger, but all she gets is the Fool grabbing the scarf around her neck to tug her in close enough to kiss, tongue invading her mouth and beard scraping her skin.

"I want to be inside you," he says against her lips, his voice thick.

She hums, and with care to avoid the gearstick swings her leg over his, moving to straddle him in the narrow space of the driver's seat. "To the victor, the spoils," she says agreeably. She's already wet for him, has been nearly aching with desire since she first saw his car by the racetrack.

His teeth press against her lips, not quite biting, his fingers firm against her hips. It takes some graceless maneuvering to get her trousers down her legs, to position herself open to slide down onto his cock. She's had him a few times now but it's still somehow a surprise when he enters her, makes her breath catch to feel how deep he goes, how full he makes her.

She's careful to keep herself from ramming against the steering wheel, instead plastering herself against his front and moving her hips to grind more than thrust. Fool groans and rocks up into her, hands tugging at her shirt until he gets it pulled free of her leather girdle and her breasts are bared for him to play with.

She doesn't fight the undressing; with her arm on her shirt can't be taken off entirely anyway, not that he's trying. And his hands feel so good on her bare chest, his fingers rolling and pinching her nipples, the scratch of his beard and the wet heat of his mouth enough to have her writhing against him when he ducks his head down.

It's difficult to work up a real rhythm in the confined space but he gives it a good shot, his hips rolling up against hers steady if not very hard or fast. Furiosa braces herself on his shoulders as she meets his movements, clenching and grinding while her breathing grows harsh and wondering if she should touch herself or if the focus should be on him, considering he won their bet.

Not that they'd actually set terms for the bet. The head of his cock rubs right against her g-spot with every rolling thrust until she has to stifle a moan behind bitten lips, the noise too loud for their surroundings.

He pulls away from her chest and the air feels cold against her nipples now that his mouth isn't on them.

"Want you to come for me," he says like he was reading her mind, the words rasped against her skin as he kisses up the line of her throat.

She makes some sort of noise in reply- far be it from her to deny a request to orgasm- and brings her hand down between their bodies to touch herself. The position they're in lets her grind against him, and he fucks like he knows what he's doing, but if he wants her to actually get off then she needs the extra push of fingers against her clit.

Her eyes slide shut, her breath coming in short pants, and when Fool cups her breasts again, rough fingers stroking over her sensitive skin, she can't quite stifle a moan as she comes.

He groans and swears, cock fucking up into her as her cunt twitches around him. Furiosa rubs over her clit and goes for a second, his movements drawing out her pleasure to the point where she doesn't want it to ever end. It's a surprise when his lips press against hers, but she opens her mouth to him readily all the same.

"I'm," he stutters out, and she redoubles her efforts to come before he does.

"Yeah," she tells him, distracted and panting, "That's it, Fool."

With a groan he gives a few hard thrusts and then stills underneath her, cock pulsing inside her. She bites her lip and swivels her hips, eking out an orgasm of her own that leaves her worn-out, unable to do anything but slump against him, her forehead pressing against the crown of his head.

For a long moment the only sound is their breathing as neither moves, and then Furiosa sighs and starts shifting out of his lap.

While she's wrestling her way back into her trousers he clears his throat and says, "You, ah, you keep calling me a fool."

She looks over at him, his hair mussed and expression confused, on the edge of quiet hurt. She huffs a laugh that's far more fond than it is teasing. "You never shared your name."

"Oh," he says, expression clearing. "It's Max. That's my name."

"Max," she repeats, tasting the short noise on her tongue. She's glad to finally have a real name for him, but she thinks she'll miss thinking of him as her Fool. When she finishes tucking her shirt back underneath the leather of her stomach girdle- she'll have to get it properly undone so she can smooth the wrinkles digging into her skin, but for now it'll do- she says, "The races are probably still going on."

He shrugs, and she looks away from him to actually take in their surroundings. They're at the same outcropping as the first time, only a short distance away from the main encampment.

"I should head back," she says when he doesn't offer any alternatives. She makes sure to grab her scarf before exiting the car this time. "See you around, Max."

 


	5. Chapter 5

There's no forewarning this time, no familiar black car driving to their territory with news. There's just the alarm call from the sentries and then chaos as attackers swarm their boundaries.

Furiosa rides out with Foxglove perched at her back, long rifle and as much spare shot as they could get clutched in her hands. She would rather leave her Initiate back in the camp again but with three of the Mothers sick with a fever they don't have the luxury of it, and the girl will have to fight eventually. Better now, when there's still enough of them to stand a decent chance of coming back unscathed than later when it's desperation to the bone.

Foxglove's bravado wears out after the first five minutes, when one of the others- Furiosa can't even tell who it is, the sand and smoke are so thick- falls in a spray of blood. Necessary as it is warfare is a cruel thing, and she still wishes she'd been able to spare her charge from any of it.

She weaves her way between the hulking cars that the raiders drive, dodging weapons and looking for places Foxglove might be able to get a shot or two off. Her attention is so tightly corralled that she somehow misses the tripwire spanning between cars right until the the moment she runs into it at full speed. Her bike is instantly checked, spinning end-over-end in the air before slamming down into the ground.

Furiosa throws out her arm to push Foxglove away but it's her metal hand, she can't tell if she's made contact at all. She barely has the time to flinch out of the bike's path herself before it would have landed on top of her, hears Fox's terrified scream but can't do anything about it. Her head ricochets off the ground hard as momentum sends her skidding away, arms and legs tucked in close on instinct because maybe she can avoid getting run over if she's a small enough target.

Her vision swims in reds and blacks, graying to nothing at the edges. She can't tell whether she's ever stopped rolling. Furiosa attempts to find Foxglove in the din, to find her bike or her gun or _anything_ that can serve as a landmark. There are engines loud in her ears, screams and gunshots and explosions, but she can't make sense of any of it.

She coughs hard on an inhale of smoke and things slip away from her entirely.

 

Furiosa comes to inside a dark tent, her head feeling fit to split open and every inch of her body aching.

"Fox?" she asks almost before her eyes are open, almost before she's sure that she's with the Vuvalini and not with the raiders, that all her remaining limbs are still attached.

"Shh," a voice says, "Rest."

She struggles against the weight of disorientation and pain to focus her gaze on Mellita, leaning down over her.

"What happened?" Furiosa asks, her throat scratchy and dry.

"The battle's over," Mellita says, "Get some rest." Her hand is gentle where it lies against her forehead.

The last time she woke up like this she was missing half her arm, and panic grips her even as she checks again that she can feel all of her limbs. "Where's Foxglove?" she asks because she can't stand to hear anything about her own state, "Is she okay?"

The hesitation in Mellita's reply tells her that something bad has happened to the girl, though what exactly she doesn't know. Injured? Dead?

"She was taken," Mellita says.

The air vanishes in her lungs, her heart jumping to a standstill. _Taken_. There are many types of slavers out there, people who will pick up captives just for playthings or for dinner, but she knows enough about this group of raiders to know what they'll have in mind for a healthy young girl.

Furiosa feels her stomach give a tight roil. She's supposed to be keeping Fox safe, teaching her how to survive- not running her bike into a trap so obvious in hindsight she can't believe she didn't see it and leaving the girl to be _taken_.

Rage and horror fills her veins with energy, but struggling to sit upright only results in her head swimming, and she falls back against the blanket with a pained whimper.

"Shh, I know," Mellita says in a soothing voice, hand stroking over the top of her head. "You need your strength."

Furiosa turns away from the touch but can already feel herself being pulled back into unconsciousness. Mellita pulls the blanket back up to cover her and moves on to her next charge in the doctoring tent, leaving Furiosa to seethe in impotent anger and fear as she fights the sleep that's tugging at her. As soon as it's light she'll get up and follow the tracks the raiders surely left, hunt them down and bring Foxglove back...

 

It takes three days before she's strong enough to leave the doctoring tent, and by then she knows that any tracks are long gone. Foxglove was taken alive, though, and she's tough and smart enough to manage to stay alive, of that Furiosa is sure.

She listens and asks pertinent questions and decides that it's likely the slavers are going to try selling Fox to the highest bidder- the Citadel. The Many Mothers may be on the other side of the wall of mountains, but they've heard how Immortan Joe greedily snatches up every healthy girl he lays eyes on.

Rumors of what he does with them range from the probable- rape and servitude- to the ludicrous- blood to keep himself healthy, sacrifices for demons he's called up. Furiosa doesn't put any stock in the fanciful tales, just takes the credible information and tries to work out a plan.

Foxglove's birth-mother is dead some three years now, and of the others not even Valkyrie will take the journey with her, which hurts like a knife through her chest but isn't a surprise. Keeping their scrap of green alive and safe is worth more than any one of their lives, and Foxglove was a beloved daughter but she's beyond their reach now. They have to keep moving if they don't want to all be wiped out.

Still, Furiosa refuses to give up so easily; she'll do everything in her power to get Foxglove back, regardless of the dangers. And if she fails, well, the Green Place will survive without her just the same as it'll survive without Fox.

It's one thing to get to the Citadel, another to get into the stronghold itself- a towering structure of stone from what the stories tell, nearly impossible to sneak into- and yet another entirely to get back out. Especially if the warlord keeps the women he's stolen locked up under even heavier security. There are no stories of it being done and so Furiosa would assume it's impossible, save for the presence of Max with his Citadel brand.

You have to actually get inside the place to get branded like that, let alone have such an expansive tattoo, which means he was there and he got out, making him her best shot at success.

  


She seeks him out the second they arrive at their usual trading spot, abandoning the others to the task of unloading the truck and setting up.

Max isn't anywhere to be found the entire first day, but she hears from Lien when he shows up on the second, a familiar enough face nowadays that he can do his own guzz trading. Furiosa finds him bartering for something or other and doesn't care that interrupting a trade is bad form when she grabs his arm.

"I need your help," she says, and his expression goes a little startled.

"What's wrong?" he asks, stepping away from the shop stall without another a word to the trader. The crowd swallows them up, a hundred eyes and ears with the illusion of privacy.

"Not here," she says with a shake of her head.

He nods, and gestures for her to lead the way. She brings him out behind Lien's shack, where things are quiet in the heat of the day and they're out of anyone's line of sight.

"I need your help getting to the Citadel," she says.

His expression flattens out.

"You got in and you got out," Furiosa says, "I've seen your brand." Your tattoo, she thinks but doesn't say.

"Stay away from there," he says. His voice is lower than usual, rougher.

"I can't," she says, shaking her head. "Help me get there."

The muscle in Max's jaw flexes, his hands curling into fists at his sides. "I'm not going back."

"Then tell me how you did it," she says, "How you got out. They took Foxglove." Even to her own ears her voice has become weak, beseeching.

His expression flickers to something dark and he shakes his head mutely.

"Why not?" she demands, "You were a cop, weren't you? I need your help."

But he only shakes his head again, eyes inscrutable.

"She's _fourteen_. Max, please, help me get her back," she says, giving up her dignity to beg.

He moves without warning, slamming her against the rickety shed with a growl. "Stop asking."

The rough action is a surprise, but Furiosa pushes back a moment later, teeth bared in a silent snarl. Why he won't help is beyond her- she thought he liked her well enough considering all the fucking they've been doing, the way he warned them of the first raider attack, but maybe she's mistaken.

"Fine," she spits at him, and shoves his arms off her. Maybe he's really been an agent of the Citadel and not an escaped slave; maybe it _was_ reconnaissance that brought him to the Green Place.

He watches her stalk away with a surly expression, and she resolves to forget that she ever knew him.

 

Valkyrie pulls her aside as soon as she's reached the camp again. "You're going after her, aren't you?"

"Of course I am," Furiosa replies, jerking away from the hand she's trying to put on her shoulder. "Tonight." There's no point delaying any longer; Max won't help, and she doesn't know anyone else who's actually been inside the Citadel for reliable information.

Valkyrie shakes her head, but doesn't say anything to try and stop her. Nor does she offer to come along, though Foxglove had followed her around nearly as often. "Be careful out there, okay?"

She nods; she can't promise to be safe, or to come back, but she _can_ promise that she'll be careful.

"Your man know you're leaving?" Valkyrie asks, and Furiosa has to stifle a nasty bark of laughter.

"Yeah, he knows," she says, and hopes that her not wanting to talk about it comes across.

 

Later, when the sun's setting and she's checking over her saddlebags for the eighth time, Max shuffles up to their camp. Furiosa buckles the strap of the bag she was restlessly sorting through and gets up to intercept him.

"Come to say goodbye?" she says, blocking any further progress he might have made towards the fire or store tent. At her back she can feel eyes on her, Valkyrie and Joy and Maadie watching with interest.

He shuffles his weight a little before answering. "You're serious," he says. "About getting to the Citadel."

"Absolutely," she replies. Nothing she's heard in the weeks since Foxglove's abduction makes her think she's been brought anywhere else, and she's going to bring her to safety if it kills her.

He nods, and pulls something out from his jacket pocket- a scrap of fabric with lines inked into it. "There's a shortcut through the mountains," he says, pointing at the fabric, and Furiosa realizes it's a map of sorts. "It'll get you through in, hmm, in a day."

A day as opposed to two weeks of going around is very tempting. "What's the catch?" she asks. Either he's going to demand some exorbitant price for the directions, or it's the sort of route that will see you dead almost as a matter of course, though she doesn't know why he's bothering to tell her in that case.

He shrugs, and lifts his eyes off the map to look behind her. "The Citadel'll eat you alive," Max says.

She blows a breath out her nose; she's been defending herself since Next Wednesday, she doesn't need this scav to tell her she'll have to step lightly. But she remembers the tattoo on his back, the glee she could feel in the words as they listed his worth down to his blood type. And Foxglove is probably already there by now... "Tell me the route. I'll give you a year's worth of tokens."

He shakes his head and folds the map back up, stuffing it into a pocket. His eyes return to her face. "I'll get you through the ridge," he says.

"I have my own wheels," she says, in case he missed the bike behind her, loaded and ready to go.

"I only know it when I drive it," he says with a shake of his head, and _fine_. She'll ride as passenger with him to get there and navigate her own way back once she has Foxglove in hand. A day of travel gives her plenty of opportunity to pick his brain about how he got out, too.

"Alright," Furiosa says aloud. "I was fixing to leave tonight..."

He nods like this isn't a surprise; it's the brightest night of the full moon and there aren't many clouds, perfect conditions to travel in. "My car's this way," he says, gesturing off towards the way he came.

She rearranges her things from saddlebags to a knapsack, and gets Val to promise to look after her bike, since she won't be needing it for a while. She could, she supposes, ride it trailing Max's car, but the noise of two engines increases the risks of being spotted and wastes twice the guzz. She'll figure out something for how to get back home- maybe steal one of their rigs while she's taking her Initiate back.

When her things are taken care of Furiosa stands forehead-to-forehead with Valkyrie one last time, pressing their skin together like she can take some of her along when she goes.

"Come back," Val says, even though she shouldn't.

"I'll try," she replies, and with a squeeze of her hands slips away to follow Max into the dark. If Valkyrie reaches out after her as if to hold her memory close, she doesn't look back to see.

 

They switch off driving around sunrise with very few words exchanged between them. She's still smarting from his violent refusal to help earlier, and he's evidently the type who sorts through things in silence. He hunkers down to sleep once she's on the wheel, curling up around himself in a tight ball and dropping off into fitful sleep.

Past midday he navigates them through a treacherous mountain pass, the ground so narrow and weak in places she's halfway convinced they'll fall straight through. It must have been animal trails originally, but somehow the car doesn't lose its footing long enough for disaster to strike.

Even so Furiosa is pretty sure the rhythm of her breathing only returns to normal once they're safely on the other side just as the sun's setting, casting long dark shadows that would have been disastrous to drive in.

She's never been on this side of the mountains before, never been this far away from the rest of her clan. And Fox is gone further still, she reminds herself, to truly dark country.

"How close can you get me?" she asks, eyeing the western horizon. It'll be a while before she can start looking for the silhouette of the Citadel, but that's no reason not to get a head start.

Max makes an odd noise, halfway between a grunt and a throat-clearing, and she turns to look at him, wondering if she should offer to take over driving for a while. "You won't get in alone," he says. "Not without... they, um, they'll..."

From the nervousness he's radiating, she's guessing that he's dancing around saying they'll want to rape her before she can start getting anywhere. It's what she expects of a bunch of warmongering men, something she's been steeling herself for since she realized she was the only one who was going to go after Foxglove.

He sighs heavily. "I can say you're mine."

Part of her bristles at the thought of being anyone's, especially a man's, even for a deception. The rest of her focuses on the idea that he might not be dropping her off to her fate and running. "You'll get me inside," she says.

He nods, eyes fixed through the windshield.

"How did you get out the first time?"

He rubs a hand over his jaw, skin rasping against the growing stubble there. She'll offer to take over driving in a while anyway, she decides. He should have a break after handling the mountain pass. "I got lucky," he says, and shrugs. "War Boy was a bleeding-heart under the paint."

She presses him for more information and learns that he saw very little of the actual insides, could guess some of the workings based on what he did see- that there was one central kitchen, that there were non-fighters taking care of the messy tasks no one else wanted, that they had fuel to burn on lights all day and night- but he was confined to a single hallway for nearly his entire stay.

"I don't know what they'll do with you," he says, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye and darting away again.

She doesn't know her blood type, but being a blood-bag like him would hardly let her move around enough to find Fox, let alone get them all back out. "There's a kitchen," she says, and shrugs exaggeratedly. "I can cook."

Truthfully her cooking skills are poor, but she doubts somehow that they're feeding gourmet meals. She's old enough that she's willing to bet she won't catch anyone's eye as a potential prize for the Immortan, and missing an arm to boot. She might have to let some people fuck her to secure her place but she doesn't think that'll be her final role, not if she plays her cards right.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Check the updated tags please! Particular warnings in this chapter for groping and talk of rape. Details in the end notes.

They spend their last morning of freedom getting the car camouflaged against a clump of rocks, until it's nearly invisible even knowing it's there.

"They'll take your gear," Max tells her, stripping off his own jacket to pack inside the car's interior.

Furiosa considers this, and considers what she's willing to lose. Her arm is non-negotiable; they can try, but she'll as soon be parted with her remaining flesh-and-blood limbs. She strips down to only her inner layers, the ones she wears on market days when looks are more important than protection, and fastens a single belt with a few essentials on around her hips. Her rifle she regretfully leaves, and all her weapons save a single knife.

"How far are we walking?" she asks, weighing her options for water bottles. If they're going to be taken she'd rather bring the less useful ones, but that might not be enough water to last long enough to get there.

"It's most of the day away," he says.

She considers this, and doubles up the battered plastic bottles. They'll be walking during the heat of the day with what looks to her like absolutely no cover, and she might not be coming back to make use of saving her canteens anyway. She wraps a scarf around her neck and sends one last look in the direction they came, where the only people she's ever known are hidden miles behind a tall ridge of mountains, and is ready to go.

 

The Citadel rears up out of the sun-bleached landscape suddenly, a trio of ugly stone blocks each with a cap of green that makes her breath catch in her throat despite herself. There must be at least as much growing land on top of the spires as there is back at the Green Place, maybe more. She had assumed the place wasn't tiny but the scale is larger than she had guessed, absolutely massive. No wonder they have the reach to plunder as far and wide as they do.

They're slowly joined by other travelers as they make their way closer, raggedy people fighting over scraps of cloth and maggots. Of the necks she can see, none have a Citadel brand burned into their skin, and none of the people look like the descriptions of War Boys that she's heard.

"They drop water sometimes," Max tells her without prompting, and points a hand up to the side of one of the spires. Underneath the toothy grin of a carved skull there's a trio of what she realizes are pipes, and the rock below streaked black with mineral deposits.

She is sure that the water isn't given as a mercy, but it isn't until they're at the base of the towers listening to the grumbling crowd that she figures out what the purpose is. Just another form of control, a way to get free bodies in exchange for not really enough water to sustain them rather than a fair trade. Still, the idea that this place has enough water to give away to so many people...

There's a cavern at the base of one of the towers, a massive split in the stone just behind what looks like a carefully-excavated structure in the sand, right where a hard-packed roadway begins. There are bridges spanning the distance between the towers but no way up that Furiosa can see.

Inside the cavern- it's not really inside, she realizes as she gets close; the rocks are painted black to give the illusion of depth, but the whole thing is maybe a few meters deep- stands a pair of black-clad men, faces entirely obscured and long weapons in their hands. There's a ring of space around them, but by the expressions of those she and Max fight their way through, it's a space that was carved out by force, not respect.

"Back!" one of the men shouts as soon as Max breaks through to the front, staff swinging out to push him away. "I said back, scag!"

Max's hand grips tightly to her wrist, though whether it's more to make sure she doesn't get separated or to ground himself she couldn't say. "Take us up," he says.

"Get bent," the man says, but the second holds up his hand to stay him from swinging his weapon again.

"Why's that, Wretch?"

"I'm marked," Max says, and brings his free hand up to gesture to the back of his neck where his brand sits.

The first man grabs Max's hair and jerks his head down to expose the brand on his neck, the same design as what's carved into the side of the stone tower. The grip on her hand grows so intense she thinks she can feel the bones in her wrist straining against one another with the threat of cracking, but it relaxes when Max is released with a shove.

"And her?"

Furiosa knows what he's going to say, knows that they'd agreed it was the best shot at getting her in, but the words still make her want to lash out.

"Breeder," Max says. "Full-life."

There's no way to know what the men are thinking with their faces so completely covered. Finally the second nods. "That's for the Organic to decide."

There's a thin chain dangling down the wall from somewhere up above, and the first man gives it a series of tugs. A moment later a thicker chain slithers down, the links threaded through with rough rope. Behind her the crowd surges and the second man starts beating them back.

"Need an invitation?" the first says scornfully, joining in on keeping the way clear. "Start climbing."

Furiosa breaks free of Max's grip to grab onto the chain, and starting the laborious process of pulling herself up. Her metal fingers catch on the rope, but she's glad to have their untiring grip all the same.

When they're a few meters up the chain jerks suddenly, sliding of its own volition further up the tower and scraping the back of her hand raw in the process- so the end is no longer within reach of the people below, she realizes as it comes to a halt again. Though why they don't drag them up the entire way is beyond her. She's panting from exertion when she finally pulls herself up the last length and onto a stone platform, vision spotty where it's unable to cope with the darkness of the true interior she's found herself in.

Max scrabbles up a few seconds later, when her vision has cleared enough to show her that she's surrounded by half-naked, painted and scarred men. Some of them are little more than children, and it's hard to be sure from under the skeletal paint but she doesn't think any of them are even as old as she is. 'Boys' is apparently a more accurate title than she would have guessed.

Max crowds in close to her, standing just behind her shoulder.

"This way," one of the War Boys says.

Furiosa can feel Max practically vibrating at her back, probably wanting nothing more than to dive for the chain that's being coiled back up and get his feet down on the ground again, but rather than flee he stays close to her as she sets her jaw and follows the War Boy further inside the Citadel.

She shakes off the weariness of the climb and keeps her eyes open; she's never been _inside_ a place like this before, a place entirely confined, rock walls so solid no sunlight can get in. There are instead buckets of flame lighting the way, as if it isn't bright daylight outside. Pipes and wiring run along the walls and ceiling, some clanking, other hissing, some dripping liquids that streak down the walls and puddle on the floor.

Without warning Max bolts when they turn a corner and reach a hallway that has wide steps carved into the walls on either sides, a glimmer of actual sunlight illuminating metal cages hanging from the ceiling.

Their War Boy escort lets out a shout and immediately gives chase, leaving Furiosa torn on what to do. Should she get Max back and calm him down, or let him go to hopefully escape again? She's inside already so really, his part in their bargain is over.

She decides to let him take his chances, and focuses her attention on the hallway she's been brought to. There are people in the cages, a few of them spilled out the bottom to hang by their ankles, and those have lines attached to them linking them to equally listless War Boys on the stone ledges. They're being used for their blood, she realizes, the same purpose Max was put to. No wonder he ran when he saw this place. At the other end of the hallway is an alcove with what looks like a pile of junk; steering wheels, maybe? An odd place for it.

"What's this?" a man with haphazard hair asks, stepping away from one of the hanging bodies. His hands are filthy as he wipes them on a rag, the leather apron around his waist decked out with metal tools that glint in the filtered sunlight.

Furiosa shifts her weight, uncomfortable under his gaze. All of her instincts are screaming at her to get out, to take off running like Max and not stop until she finds Foxglove so they can _leave_. She forces herself to take a breath. "I-"

She doesn't know what she was going to say, but she doesn't get the chance to finish whatever it was because Max is suddenly back, being dragged kicking and growling by a horde of painted War Boys. His eyes are frantic, his teeth bared as they press him to the floor; he looks on the edge of inhuman and she feels a stab of pain for him.

"What's _this_?" the man repeats, but now his tone is entirely different. Gleeful. "The runaway blood-bag?"

Max snaps his teeth futilely.

"He came up with 'er," the War Boy who had led them here says with a jerk of his head in her direction. "Then did a runner."

"My lucky day," the man says. "You found yourself a wifey, did you?" He crouches down by Max's head, out of range of his snarling mouth. "A new breeder for us to play with?"

"I'm not a breeder," Furiosa snaps, despite the wisdom of staying silent to see how things unfold.

The man- she thinks this must be the Organic alluded to by others- turns his head to take her in, gaze slimy as it drags over her body. "I'll be the judge of that, dearie," he says with the sort of smile that usually earns men a punch to the mouth. But she's not on her own turf here, and the hallway is entirely full of men, and men alone. The reality of where she is is starting to set in and it's dizzying.

He gestures and suddenly hands are grabbing for her, and she reflexively tries to dodge away and fight them off. They're strong though and she's caught fast within seconds, hands at her wrists and ankles and around her middle, though at least they leave her standing.

"Let's see," Organic says, putting one of his grimy hands on her chin to jerk her head this way and that. She doesn't follow Max's example to snap her teeth at him but it's a near thing. "Eyes are good." He snaps his fingers next to one ear, then the other. "Hearing checks." His hands move over her body in a surprisingly perfunctory way- he isn't groping her, he's _assessing_ her, like she's some piece of livestock. "No lumps! How'd you lose the arm?"

Furiosa says nothing, which doesn't seem to deter him in the least. His hand snakes down inside her leathers to cup against her crotch and she fights as best she can, but the hands holding her down are strong and she only thrashes in place uselessly.

"Genuine vulva," he continues, but doesn't do anything more than just probe at her for a moment before pulling his hand back away. "We'll check yer piss 'n bleedings later but it looks like you're a full-life breeder, all right. Shame you're so used up; old Joe might'a wanted a stab, eh?"

"Leave her alone," Max growls from his place on the floor, a belated defense she doubts will have any effect anyway.

"What's that, blood-bag?" Organic says, turning away from her to look down at him. "You think because you came back you have a _say_ in this?" He gives a bark of laughter, short and mean. "I'd cut your tongue out but you don't use it anyway."

Max growls wordlessly, but he's caught fast by hands just like she is.

"I can work in the kitchens," Furiosa says, her voice wavering without her directing it to. She can almost still feel his hand poking at her and she knows it's the least of what she could have expected, but it makes her feel sick with violation all the same. "Or with plants."

Organic's watching her like she's putting on a show for his amusement and she hates him desperately, hates that the fear in her voice isn't an act. Being turned into breeding stock would at least get her to the same place as Foxglove, she assumes, but the thought of actually being put in that position makes her want to retch. He looks from her down to Max, and back. "Hear that, blood-bag? Your bitch knows the value of a little cooperation."

Max's jaw flexes, but he's silent this time.

"Tell you what," Organic says to her. "Let's check your blood. I could use a crop of new universal donors and you're the first breeder willing to fuck that psycho."

Furiosa grits her teeth against the disgust roiling through her because she remembers seeing those words, 'universal donor', tattooed on Max's back and she thinks Organic is talking about letting her stay with him. Being considered a breeder in any sense is infuriating, but it isn't as if it's real, as if it's permanent- as soon as she has Foxglove, she's leaving.

Organic pricks her finger and does something with the blood that she can't really see, and isn't sure she wants to.

"A-negative," he says after a minute, lifting his eyes up from the little tray he'd been hunched over. "It'll do." He sets the tray down and beckons his hand. "Bring her through, I'll need to get her branded up."

Furiosa thrashes; she might have guessed that they would brand her like they'd done to Max, but she hadn't actually thought about it. Her struggles get her nowhere, just dragged out of the hallway to another room. She can hear Organic talking, presumably to Max- it's hard to hear clearly over the noises she's making, but she thinks Organic is using Max's attachment to her like a bargaining chip to get him to comply. She isn't sure whether she wants to know whether it'll work or not.

"Someone should tell Nux his blood-bag's back," one of the War Boys says, casually as if they're not pinning her down on the blood-stained sand of what looks like a surgery. Another of them laughs, the vibration traveling down their arms through to her.

"Can you believe he's wasting a whole breeder on a feral like that?"

"Wish _I_ had my own breeder."

"You wouldn't know what to do with it if you had one, lugnut."

They carry on a conversation over her squirming body like this is a perfectly ordinary day for them. Furiosa doesn't think she's ever hated anyone more.

It seems to take an age before Organic reappears, and he doesn't waste time on pleasantries before grabbing something out of a flaming barrel- the branding iron, stench of hot metal and burning flesh filling her nostrils. She jerks and fights even knowing it's useless, even when Organic says, "Hold her tight now, we don't want this to smudge."

She doesn't attempt to hold in her scream when the metal touches down on the back of her neck, when it burns through her skin down into the meat of her body, down nearly to bone or so it feels. It's a searing pain and the scream lets her push the feeling away, lets it move through her rather than staying coiled up to incapacitate.

She doesn't feel it when the iron is removed, only thinks maybe it is because the hands ease up on holding her head down.

"There," Organic says, confirming her assumption, "Pretty as a picture." He crouches down next to her and she doesn't turn to look at him only because the pain of moving her neck right now would be nearly blinding, watery eyes blurring her vision anyway. "Here's what's going to happen: you're gonna keep opening your legs for the blood-bag, and in return I won't let the Imperators loose on you."

It's probably the best news she could have hoped for considering the situation, but she still wants to spit on him at the idea that she's a commodity, a bargaining chip.

"Pop out a couple of little universals and who knows, maybe I'll even let you spend your retirement in the Bio-Dome like old Biddy Giddy."

She does spit then, though it only lands on the dirty sand instead of even his boots. He laughs and stands back up.

"Let her go. Have Klunk find her a place."

Furiosa surges up to her feet as soon as the pressure is taken off of her, wanting to take a swing at Organic or the War Boys but reining in the impulse because she's gotten what she wanted, now. She has a place inside the Citadel and she can look for Fox from a place of relative safety... as long as Max stays put. She doesn't know enough about this place to be sure what an 'Imperator' is but it sounds like a rank, and she has no intentions of being handed around as a fucktoy for anyone.

"Come on," one of the War Boys says, grabbing her upper arm.

She jerks herself against his grip for the principle of the thing, succeeding only in bruising herself. He directs her back out into the hallway where she sees Max, still pinned but this time with some sort of metal mask over his face- the muzzle his tattoo talked about, she realizes in a flash. Like he's an animal.

His head snaps to her direction when she appears, and she gingerly shakes her head. She's fine, new burn and feeling of powerlessness notwithstanding. He doesn't relax, but he doesn't thrash, either.

"Relax, blood-bag," Organic says. "She's all yours. No one wants a cunt that a feral's been at, anyway."

Furiosa steels her spine and turns away from Max, marching alongside the War Boy holding onto her arm. She'll have to be allowed to see him again if they're hoping she gets knocked up, and she'll talk to him then.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Furiosa is given an intake exam by the Organic Mechanic that involves being touched all over in a non-sexual way, including a hand down her pants to check her genitals. She's also threatened with being raped/turned into a breeder if she and Max don't cooperate.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...Oops. Sorry for taking nearly a year to update!

She's given a job in the kitchens after all, a harried-looking woman with tumors distorting her arm directing Furiosa to a series of mundane tasks: shelling peas, stirring pots, rearranging drying racks. It's a vast operation here and she's told in the plainest possible language that if she's ever caught stealing or fouling food, she'll be killed.

Furiosa doesn't ask what becomes of the bodies of the thieves- there's more meat here than she'd see in a month back at the Green Place, not all of it identifiable.

There's no mercy for it being her first day; she's given tasks and expected to get them done, and with no windows it's impossible to be sure how much time has passed. Finally she's given a plate of leftovers and allowed to eat, and when that's clean they're dismissed for the day as an obnoxious buzzer noise rings out from someplace unseen.

"Do you have a place to sleep yet?" one of the other kitchen workers- Dyn, she thinks they named themselves- asks as the workers file into the hallway.

Furiosa shakes her head, her brand burning fresh at the movement, but then says, "I need to find someone."

Dyn nods sagely. "There's always someone. Who is it?"

She thinks about asking after Foxglove, but from the kitchen chatter she'd overheard she's already picked up on the fact that she's most likely in the Bio-Dome that Organic mentioned, and that the place is locked up tight. She won't be able to get to her by just  _ asking _ , and the more interest she shows, the more suspicion can build up. "A blood-bag," she says instead, the title sour on her tongue.

"Ah. Blood Shed's this way," Dyn says, and leads her through the twisting mess of tunnels as if they were born to it. Maybe they were; this place runs with the ease of long-operation, and Dyn looks young. "Organic Mechanic doesn't mind people playing spectator, so you'll probably be fine having a few minutes."

The 'Blood Shed' turns out to be the area she left Max in, the place she was branded and felt up like a horse at auction. A fitting name for it.

Max is sitting on the topmost ledge, his arms stretched over his head where they're chained to a peg set high into the wall and still with that muzzle strapped to his face. There's a line of red snaking from just above his clavicle down into a War Boy on a lower ledge, and he looks pale underneath the grit.

She stifles a shout of his name and instead makes her way over to him swiftly, ignoring Dyn's advice to keep out of the way. He lifts his head at her approach and looks tired, but something like relief creeps into his expression behind the prongs of metal. She wants to rip the needle out of his skin but she can't, not if she wants to keep her new and tenuous position here, and settles for laying her hand on what she can easily reach from the ground- his ankle.

"What a touching reunion," Organic drawls, and she whirls to face him.

"He's no good to you bled dry," she says before she can think better of it.

It only seems to amuse him because he chuckles. "You'd be surprised," he says, and she shivers at the implications. "Go on, take your dog. Give him a belly rub, eh?"

Furiosa has to remind herself that attacking him does her no good. Still, she wastes no time climbing up the ledges to Max's side, and plucking the needle from his vein. He twitches but doesn't fight. "This may hurt," she whispers to him before reaching up and unhooking his hands, letting him draw them back down towards his body. If they've been like that for a while, as seems likely, or if he's put weight on them struggling, they're sure to be sore and strained.

He grunts in discomfort and leans forward so his forehead rests against her shoulder for a moment, the prongs of the muzzle held away from her body. She wants to do something to comfort him, but she can't bring herself to while Organic is watching.

"I need the keys," she tells Organic, forcing herself to act as if she deals with chained-up friends every day.

He laughs again, a sound she is sorely coming to hate. "He doesn't need his hands for this part either," he says.

She bristles, and resolves to find some way to get the manacles off. She was already planning on doing something about the muzzle. "Come on," she tells Max, and helps him find his balance as he gets to his feet.

"Oi, blood-bag," Organic calls out when they're nearly to where Dyn is watching curiously, "Don't forget our bargain, hmm?"

Max growls out something under his breath that she doesn't catch, and keeps stomping away from the Blood Shed without a backwards glance.

"I've never seen the Organic let a blood-bag  _ go _ like that," Dyn says once they've rounded a corner. "What deal did you make?"

"None of your business," Furiosa says tightly. She likes Dyn well enough- they're the one showing her around the labyrinth, after all- but she refuses to air the details of what's keeping her and Max here.

"Sure, sure," Dyn says unconvincingly. They lead them away from the Blood Shed, closer she thinks back to where the kitchens are.

"Are you okay?" she asks Max quietly while they walk.

He shrugs and grunts, which she supposes is about the answer she should have expected. How could losing your blood to War Boys make you okay?

"Did they feed you?" she asks instead.

He shakes his head, and she feels a flare-up of rage. "I've still got some things," she says; they'd grabbed at her things just like he said they would, but she'd managed to keep the pouches on her belt intact. She doesn't have much in them, but she has some food that she can give him. When they're settled and she can sneak it out without drawing attention to herself; from how food was handled in the kitchen, she isn't willing to bet that she won't be mugged for the slivers of snake jerky she brought with her.

"Here's where I bed down," Dyn says at last, stopping at the entrance to a roughly-carved room without a door. "Don't wanna flash anything shiny but it's safe for sleeping."

There are people spread out across the entire room on the bare stone, tired and dirty and worn-out like everyone else she's seen, War Boys aside. There isn't much space but it'll do for tonight, a flat surface to curl up on and pretend she'll be able to rest with so many strangers crowded around her.

There's no lamp in the room itself, just the hallway outside, and so Furiosa doesn't head inside just yet. "Thank you," she says to Dyn, who nods and slips inside. "Stay here a minute," she says to Max.

He leans against the wall, and she picks up his bound wrists. The manacles are stiff, the edges pressing red lines into his skin. But there's no lock on it, just a latch that he can't get to on his own. She undoes the latch and the halves slide free, Max shaking out his arms with a grateful noise. "Keep them," he says, maybe guessing that she wants to throw the manacles away down the empty hallway.

Keep them and put them back on his wrists tomorrow morning before he goes back to Organic, she thinks. Otherwise he might replace them with something sturdier, harder to get on and off.

"Let me see the muzzle," she says in reply. He shifts away from the wall, letting her see the metal that's wrapped around his head. It's well-made, sturdy. The lock looks like it can be picked easily enough, but lock-picks weren't something she'd though to carry with her. Maybe someone in the room has a file, or a pair of wire-snips strong enough. She draws her hand away with an irritated sigh. "I can't get it off."

He shrugs, but she can see the frustration on his features. "You're okay?" he asks, hand reaching out to touch her arm.

"Fine," she replies. "I'm in the kitchen after all." His lips twitch, but he can't muster even a half-smile. "I haven't heard anything about Fox yet, though."

"Sorry," he says, and shakes his head. "I don't hear much. Down there."

"It's my responsibility," she says. She needs to move fast, before he's bled dry and before poor Foxglove has to go through more of what horrors she can imagine the Citadel having in store for her, but it isn't his job to do anything to help. The fact that he got her inside, and in a position like this where she's safe, means she owes him enough already.

Inside the room most everyone is asleep, or pretending to be, and Furiosa finds a space for her and Max to curl up together, further from a wall than she would like. But he lies with his back against hers, both of them covering each other's blind spots while they try to get comfortable on cold bare stone, and she supposes that's good enough.

 

She half expected to wake up to a knife in the gut, or at least hands trying to get at the pouches around her waist, but when a loud bell rings through the air and she jolts awake nothing is truly amiss. Max flails out wildly and growls, his face contorted in blank rage, and for a moment she's almost grateful that the muzzle is still on his face.

She puts her flesh hand on his shoulder to steady him and he snarls, but the buzzer stops and his eyes begin to clear, to take in his surroundings for real.

He blows out a breath and his spine curves inwards, shoulders slumping. "Morning," he says, his voice weary. There's a wide swathe of space around them now, people moving out of the way of a potential threat.

Furiosa squeezes her hand on his shoulder gently, reassurance or apology she couldn't say, before pushing herself up to stand with a stretch. Whether it's really morning or not- things look entirely the same as they did when she went to sleep, dim and smoky- everyone else seems to be getting up, and she feels as if she's slept at least a few hours. It's utterly alien to be experiencing this, not seeing and feeling the rising sun on her skin to tell her it's morning but relying on something as artificial as what she now realizes are speakers wired high up on the walls.

The last thing she wants to do is hand Max back to Organic for another day of being drained of blood, but she doesn't know what will happen if she tries to hide him. The muzzle is hardly inconspicuous.

"Come with me to the kitchen," she says. "I'll get you something to eat."

She doesn't actually know if that's allowed; they'd been given the leftovers from the War Boys' evening meal last night to eat, but there's no telling if the same will hold true of any other meal. If there even  _ are _ any other meals than just the one.

He shakes his head. "Better not push it."

She doesn't like his answer, but she acknowledges that he has a point. And besides, she has only a dim memory of how to get from the kitchen to the Blood Shed where he'll presumably spend his day. Who knows what punishments they'll dole out if they think he's trying to escape again when he's really only wandering lost?

"I'll see you tonight," she says, and wishes the muzzle was gone so she could kiss him goodbye, wishes they were back at the trading post or the Green Place where such a thing would be safe. He lets her fasten the manacles back around his wrists before he goes, though she hates to do it.

When he's heading for the Blood Shed she attempts to navigate the way towards the kitchen, following a group of people that she's pretty sure she worked with the day before while keeping an eye on her surroundings to memorize the way. She hopes she isn't here long enough for it to become second-nature, but the sooner she learns her way around the sooner she'll feel like she has slightly more solid footing under her.

Everything is so closed in, so dark and smoky, it's making her claustrophobic. At the Green Place there are no walls, no tents too large to simply take a few steps and look around, if not over. Even the stalls at the tradepost are spaced apart, with nothing but the sky over them.

The hallways here twist and turn, narrow and widen, have the walls suddenly fall away to reveal another route. And they're crawling with War Boys, from small ghost-like children up to men bulging with muscles and scars, all stripped to the waist and painted unnatural white and skull-like black.

And Foxglove has been here for two weeks already, she reminds herself. Maybe not down in these tunnels but somewhere in this hive, and every painted body Furiosa passes is another reminder of why she needs to get her out as quickly as possible.

The kitchens are bright when she gets there, and she's almost immediately set to the same sort of menial tasks as the day before- mashing up maggots, scraping away burned gunk on their pans, stirring a pot of something that smells like soured milk. Nothing that requires a knife, she notices, nothing that touches the high-value food.

And there is some high-value food being prepared, on its own counter away from the general muck. Not insects, not the rats that she watches be cooked up for the War Boys' meal, but an actual chicken. Furiosa can't remember the last time she saw a living chicken but there's one being butchered not three meters away now, handled casually to tell her it isn't any special occasion.

"That's for Him," Reta says when she catches her staring. "And His Wives, of course. You don't trouble yourself thinking you'll get scraps off  _ that _ bird."

"Does he have many Wives?" Furiosa asks, attempting to appear indifferent.

Reta laughs. "Don't trouble yourself thinking you'll be one of  _ them _ , neither."

"That's not what I meant," she says, the words sharp enough to make it seem a lie. She reins herself in before speaking again. "How many people do they think one chook will feed?"

"He's got a half-dozen last I knew," Reta says. "Tiny young things, too." She shakes her head. "I'd like to fatten 'em up like we do the Milkers but that ain't my call."

Furiosa isn't sure whether she's surprised to hear that number. Six seems like hardly any, for a man running this sort of operation, but at the same time it's far too many. "I heard he got a new one recently," she says, eyes trained back on the potato she's meant to be brushing dirt off.

"Spitfire, I heard," Reta says with relish. "Nearly bit Imperator Ripsaw's fingers off! Doesn't know what's best for her, I figure. Anyone'd kill to be in her place."

"What, being held captive and raped?" Furiosa says before she can stop herself. The people here don't seem to see things the same way she does, treat the horrible business of  _ breeding _ like it's a fact of life instead of a violation of the highest order. She can still feel Organic's fingers probing at her, can still hear his voice demanding she produce children.

"Getting the best food and water, that's what. Even the air's clean in the 'Dome!" Reta looks almost angry, and Furiosa can't figure out if it's out of defense for the warlord or not. "We all have to put up with getting poked, and to think that she could be carrying His heir in exchange!"

Furiosa makes herself bite down on her tongue so what she really wants to say won't slip out. Starting a fight here won't change anything for the better, and she has a better chance of getting into the Bio-Dome from the kitchen then just about anywhere else- everyone needs to eat, after all, and someone has to carry the trays in and out. "Well, when you put it like that," she says blandly.

Reta gives a little huffy exhale, but settles herself. "You'd best watch your tongue," she says. "Rape, indeed."

Her day in the kitchen drags on, with the only breaks when she has to dart away for the dunny. They're fed in the morning and again at night, scraps from the War Boys' meals each time- better fare than what gets fed to the general rabble, the slop they mix up for the blood-bags and the poor souls running what's only referred to as 'the treads', but worse than what's given to the Imperators and other high-ranks. Furiosa pockets what she can of her meal for later, to share with Max. Not only does she have enough to eat for herself but she can help keep his strength up, help him endure.

She slips away from the general crowd after the end-of-day bells to fetch him from the Blood Shed, taking care to remember the route since she has a feeling it will become a routine swiftly enough. Not once during the day had she gotten a chance to so much as peek into the hallway outside, and talking with the kitchen workers had proven fruitless. There's a locked room up on some higher level where Foxglove most likely is being kept, but no one's forthcoming about any details.

 

She passes by countless War Boys in the hallways, all of them looking past her like she doesn't even exist. It's the others who have their attention caught, the ones dressed in rags over skinny bodies, the people she thinks are the ones who do all the unsavory tasks of keeping a huge place like this running.

"Hey, Breeder," one calls to her, and Furiosa pulls a disgusted face as she keeps marching towards the Blood Shed to collect Max. "Pretty girl!" he shouts, and puckers his lips in a loud parody of a kiss.

This draws a passing War Boy's attention, and Furiosa is suddenly fully aware that she's surrounded by men, in a place where they're perfectly used to abusing any women that catches their fancy. She can see a woman up ahead looking this way but her eyes are dull, uncaring.

"Here, girly," the man says, smiling to reveal his broken teeth. The War Boy smirks and looks amused, like they're his entertainment for the evening.

The man's hand reaches out and Furiosa takes off running, only stopping when she's in sight of Max, of the Organic and his disgusting deal to keep her from having to be breeding stock for anyone who passes by.


End file.
